390 articles
Lake
Lake: a standing body of water in a landscape depression, fed by runoff and groundwater; also called inland still water, distinct from manmade reservoirs behind dams. Stores about 87% of liquid surface freshwater; stratifies into epilimnion and hypolimnion; warming up to 0.45°C per decade.
Lake Agassiz
Lake Agassiz was the largest glacial lake in North America, formed by the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet. Its meltwater rerouting is linked to the Younger Dryas cooling and the 8.2 ka event.
Lake Allatoona
Lake Allatoona: 11,862-acre USACE reservoir on the Etowah River near Cartersville, Georgia, impounded 1949 by Allatoona Dam for flood control, hydropower (83-85 MW), and water supply; nearly 7 million annual visitors.
Lake Atitlán
Lake Atitlán (Spanish: Lago de Atitlán) is a deep caldera lake in Guatemala's western highlands, filling a volcanic collapse basin and ringed by the volcanoes Atitlán, San Pedro, and Tolimán.
Lake Austin
Lake Austin, formerly Lake McDonald, is a constant-level Highland Lakes reservoir on the Colorado River in west Austin, Texas, formed by Tom Miller Dam (1939) and serving as a major Austin drinking water source.
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is a rift lake in south-east Siberia, Russia, the oldest and deepest lake in the world at about 25 million years and 1,700 m deep.
Lake Balaton
Lake Balaton (Balaton) is Hungary's large shallow freshwater lake, the largest in Central Europe, about 80 km long and 3.7 m deep. Known for 19th-century Hunyady resort origins, the 'communist Riviera' era, eutrophication and recovery, and the 2019 record algal bloom.
Lake basin
Lake basin: the depression holding a lake and the land draining into it; also called catchment or watershed. Covers origin types (11 forces), watershed-to-lake area ratio, endorheic basins, and datasets like LakeCat.
Lake bed
A lake bed, also written lakebed, is the bottom of a lake, often implying a dry lake; it is where sediment accumulates and fossils are found.
Lake Biwa - Japan
Lake Biwa (琵琶湖), Japan's largest lake, is a tectonic freshwater lake in Shiga Prefecture, about 674 km², 103.58 m deep, roughly 4 million years old, supplying drinking water to about 14 million people in the Kansai region.
Lake Bled
Lake Bled (Blejsko jezero) is a glacial lake in Upper Carniola, Slovenia, 2,120 m long and up to 31 m deep, formed about 14,000 years ago, with Bled Island and its Assumption church and Bled Castle above the shore.
Lake Bonneville
Lake Bonneville, the largest Pleistocene lake of western North America, occupied northwestern Utah and southern Idaho about 30,000 to 13,000 years ago; its Bonneville flood through Red Rock Pass and remnant Great Salt Lake distinguish it.
Lake Chad
Lake Chad is a shallow endorheic lake in the Sahel bordering Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. Once about 22,000–25,000 km², it lost 90% of its area by the 1990s, then stabilized and recently refilled.
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain is a 120-mile-long, 400-foot-deep lake between New York's Adirondacks and Vermont's Green Mountains, draining north through Quebec's Richelieu River to the St. Lawrence; named for Samuel de Champlain, it supplies drinking water to about 200,000 people.
Lake channel
A lake channel is a part of a lake deep enough for navigation between islands or shoals, or any named channel associated with a lake.
Lake Chaubunagungamaug
Lake Chaubunagungamaug, known locally as Webster Lake, is a 1,297-acre lake in Webster, Massachusetts, near the Connecticut border, famous for its 45-letter alternate name coined in 1921.
Lake Chelan
Lake Chelan is a 50.4-mile glacial lake in Chelan County, Washington, the state's deepest and largest natural lake at 1,486 ft, with two basins, Lucerne and Wapato, split by the Narrows, draining via the four-mile Chelan River.
Lake Colhué Huapí
Lake Colhué Huapí (Lago Colhué Huapí), shallow Patagonian lake in Chubut, Argentina, paired with Musters Lake in the Senguer basin; fluctuated 105–797 km², dried out by 2020, reemerged 2024 at 190 km².
Lake Como
Lake Como (Lago di Como, Lario) is a glacial Y-shaped lake in Lombardy, Italy: third largest at about 145 km², deepest of the large prealpine lakes at 410 m, regulated by the Consorzio dell'Adda and a major tourist destination.
Lake Constance
Lake Constance, also known as Bodensee, is a large deep pre-Alpine lake shared by Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and the second largest pre-Alpine lake in Europe.
Lake District
The Lake District is a 2,292 sq km mountainous region in North West England, a National Park since 1951 and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017, known for its lakes, Herdwick sheep farming, and Romantic heritage.
Lake Ebinur
Lake Ebinur (Aibi Lake), Xinjiang's largest saline lake, is a shallow hypersaline terminal lake near Kazakhstan fed by the Bortala and Jinghe rivers, shrinking from about 1,200 km² in 1950 to under 500 km² through irrigation and dams, exposing dust-storm-generating salt playas.
Lake ecosystem
Lake ecosystem: the interacting physical, chemical, and biological system of an inland standing water body and its watershed. Covers thermal stratification, phosphorus limitation, trophic cascades, climate-driven mixing changes, regime shifts, and ecosystem services.
Lake Engure
Lake Engure (Engures ezers), Latvia's largest lagoon lake, a shallow Littorina Sea remnant on the Gulf of Riga; Ramsar site no. 738 since 1995, core of Lake Engure Nature Park, famed for breeding waterbirds, charophyte habitats, and reed-cutting restoration.
Lake Erie
Lake Erie, the shallowest and smallest-by-volume Great Lake (average depth 19 m, volume 484 cubic km), lies between Ontario and Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York, supplies drinking water to about 11 million people, and faces persistent phosphorus-driven harmful algal blooms.
Lake Foxen
Lake Foxen (Foxen), Swedish lake in western Värmland near Årjäng, northern part of the Stora Le system; drains to Lelång at Lennartsfors via Dalsland Canal; oligotrophic, limed, known for burbot, pike, perch.
Lake freighter
Lake freighters (lakers) are bulk cargo ships operating on the Great Lakes, distinct from ocean-going salties. Key facts: 71.3 million tons U.S. cargo in 2025, 63-vessel U.S. fleet, Seawaymax size limits, self-unloaders versus straight-deckers, 1906 J. Pierpont Morgan first modern freighter.
Lake Garda
Lake Garda (Lago di Garda, Benaco) is Italy's largest lake: 369.98 km², 49 km³, 346 m deep, spanning Lombardy, Veneto, and Trentino-Alto Adige, fed by the Sarca and drained by the Mincio.
Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva (Lac Léman), Western Europe's largest lake at 580 km² and 309.7 m deep on the Swiss-French border; glacially carved basin, monomictic, 11-year water renewal, Rhône-fed, monitored by CIPEL.
Lake George (lake), New York
Lake George, called Lac du Saint-Sacrement until 1755, is a 32-mile-long lake in the southern Adirondacks of New York, among the cleanest large lakes in the United States.