Portal:Lakes

The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes

Selected panorama

– Hover over image and scroll to middle for controls to see more selected panorama images –

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   A view of the six lowest (and largest) lakes of the Seven Rila Lakes
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   A view of Isojärvi in Satakunta, Western Finland
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   A view of Goëngarijpsterpoelen, one of the Frisian Lakes
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   Thunder Lake in Northern Alberta
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   A view of Lake Teletskoye, the largest lake in the Altai Mountains and the Altai Republic, Russia
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   A view of West Lake in Hangzhou, China

Introduction

Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France

A lake is a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from the ocean, although they may be connected with the ocean by rivers, such as Lake Ontario. Most lakes are freshwater and account for almost all the world's surface freshwater, but some are salt lakes with salinities even higher than that of seawater. Lakes vary significantly in surface area and volume.

Lakes are typically larger and deeper than ponds, which are also water-filled basins on land, although there are no official definitions or scientific criteria distinguishing the two. Lakes are also distinct from lagoons, which are shallow tidal pools dammed by sandbars at coastal regions of oceans or large lakes. Most lakes are fed by springs, and both fed and drained by creeks and rivers, but some lakes are endorheic without any outflow, while volcanic lakes are filled directly by precipitation runoffs and do not have any inflow streams.

Natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas (i.e. alpine lakes), dormant volcanic craters, rift zones and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in depressed landforms or along the courses of mature rivers, where a river channel has widened over a basin formed by eroded floodplains and wetlands. Some parts of the world have many lakes formed by the chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last ice age. All lakes are temporary over long periods of time, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Satellite photo from August 2018 after years of drought, reaching near-record lows. Note the difference in colors between the northern and southern portions of the lake, the result of a railroad causeway.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particularly through lake-effect snow. It is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric body of water that covered much of western Utah.

The area of the lake can fluctuate substantially due to its low average depth of 16 feet (4.9 m). In the 1980s, it reached a historic high of 3,300 square miles (8,500 km²), and the West Desert Pumping Project was established to mitigate flooding by pumping water from the lake into the nearby desert. In 2021, after years of sustained drought and increased water diversion upstream of the lake, it fell to its lowest recorded area at 950 square miles (2,500 km²), falling below the previous low set in 1963. Continued shrinkage could turn the lake into a bowl of toxic dust, poisoning the air around Salt Lake City (cf. Salton Sea).

The lake's three major tributaries, the Jordan, Weber, and Bear rivers together deposit around 1.1 million tons of minerals in the lake per year. Since the lake has no outlet besides evaporation, these minerals accumulate and give the lake high salinity (far saltier than seawater) and density. This density causes swimming in the lake to feel similar to floating. (Full article...)

General topics

• List of lakes
  • Lists of lakes
  • List of lakes by area
  • List of lakes by depth
  • List of drying lakes
  • List of international lakes
  • List of ancient lakes
  • List of prehistoric lakes
  • List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System
• Limnology
• Lake ecosystem
• Lake stratification
• Ancient lake
• Former lake
• Shrunken lake
• Salt lake
• Lava lake
• Reservoir
• Lakes of Titan

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Do you have a question about lakes that you can't find the answer to? Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.

General images -

The following are images from various Lake-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)
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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  An artist's depiction of the subglacial lakes and rivers beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Image credit: Zina Deretsky / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (from Lake)
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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)
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  Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (from Subglacial lake)
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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from Lake)
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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)
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  Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  The Nowitna River in Alaska. Two oxbow lakes – a short one at the bottom of the picture and a longer, more curved one at the middle-right. (from Lake)
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  Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes, as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic (from Lake)
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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from Lake)
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  The first view of the sediment at the bottom of subglacial Lake Whillans, captured by the WISSARD expedition. Image credit: NASA/JPL, California Institute of Technology (from Subglacial lake)
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  Round Tangle Lake, one of the Tangle Lakes, 2,864 feet (873 m) above sea level in interior Alaska (from Lake)
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  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (from Lake)
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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (from Lake)
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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  A schematic cross-section of the subglacial pool beneath Taylor Glacier and its outflow, Blood Falls. Image credit: Zina Deretsky / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
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  An illustration of ice core drilling above subglacial Lake Vostok. These drilling efforts collected re-frozen lake water that has been analyzed to understand the lake's chemistry. Image credit: Nicolle Rager-Fuller / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
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  The Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged inland sea (from Lake)
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  Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake)
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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (from Lake)
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  Ephemeral 'Lake Badwater', a lake only noted after heavy winter and spring rainfall, Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, 9 February 2005. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)
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  A view of the southern polar plain of Mars. The area where a subglacial lake has been detected is highlighted. Image credit: USGS Astrogeology Science Center, Arizona State University (from Subglacial lake)
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  Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia, Canada, is impounded by lava flows comprising The Barrier (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  View of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia which is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (from Lake)
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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (from Lake)
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  Lakes can have significant cultural importance. The West Lake of Hangzhou has inspired romantic poets throughout the ages, and has been an important influence on garden designs in China, Japan and Korea. (from Lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)

Related portals

WikiProjects

Tulainyo Lake is a freshwater alpine lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada in the U.S. state of California

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The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

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External media

External media

• World Lake Database. International Lake Environment Committee Foundation. – provides a searchable database
• Global Lakes and Wetlands Database. World Wide Fund for Nature. – available for free download

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