Talk:List of lakes of Michigan

This article was nominated for deletion on March 12th, 2009. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Michigan Low‑importance

	Michigan portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Michigan, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Michigan on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MichiganWikipedia:WikiProject MichiganTemplate:WikiProject MichiganMichigan articles
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Lakes Mid‑importance

	Lakes portal List of lakes of Michigan is within the scope of WikiProject Lakes, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of lake-related articles on Wikipedia, using the tools on the project page. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LakesWikipedia:WikiProject LakesTemplate:WikiProject LakesLakes articles
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Limiting this list to only lakes[edit]

As Mgm mentioned here, we should probably limit this list to contain only lakes, or if we want to include ponds, reservoirs etc, we should rename the page. My recommendation would be to limit this to lakes. There are thousands of lakes alone, without including other bodies of water. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk 15:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's just my opinion, but I think they should be included, even without a list name change. Other states that have list of lakes that also include reservoirs and they are known as List of lakes in Ohio/Arizona, to name two examples. Some states, like Maine, do have reservoirs separate. Quistisffviii (talk) 16:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that it's fine to include them. Especially considering that other states do. It's simpler and cleaner in my opinion to include bodies of whater that are commonly thought of as lakes or that have "Lake" in the title. A pond is really just a small lake (with no actual specific agreed upon determination of cut-off sizes) and a resevoir is really just a man made lake. To insist on different categories I think is just splitting hairs and will result in many arguments as to what bodies of water constitute lake, resevoir, or pond, and constant nitpickyness that will accomplish very little. Maybe an itallicised notation that "list of lakes includes bodies of water that are commonly refered to as lakes and may include resevoirs and ponds (but does not include streams, rivers, creaks, oceans, bays or other bodies of water that would not commonly be refered to as a lake.) Seems simple enough to me. amyanda (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

Just for reference, here are two links that can be used for finding information on lakes in Michigan.

Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources - They have maps of most lakes, along with surface area and max depth etc.
Geographic Names Information System - This can be used to search for each body of water to determine if it is classified as a lake or something else, as well as other information such as alternate names and geographical coordinates.

— LinguistAtLarge • Talk 16:19, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Listing the Lakes[edit]

Should we list the lakes that have no pages yet? Minnesota's list of lakes includes those entries as well. Some states, though, seem to list ones that have Wiki pages only, unless those are the only lakes in their states... I believe they should be included, but if those are to be included, how will referencing be done? That Michigan government site by county lists a lot of lakes, but not all. Should only those or the ones listed at the above mentioned geonames.usgs.gov site be included it the lake does not have a Wiki page? So far that geonames one is pretty thorough, but there is one it did not find (but unsure if the name is right).

Also I think that even the listings with multiple lakes of the same name (as referenced at the top) should be listed on the list. If nobody minds, I will add Flint Park Lake (aka Devil's Lake) to the list since I do happen to know the acreage after creating Flint Park. Any thoughts or opinions? Quistisffviii (talk) 10:09, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just added Lake Ligon. It is one without a Wiki entry and it does not appear on geonames.usgs.gov, but it exists: Ligon Outdoor Center:General Info. Should it be included? There is another one too that is a few miles away from Ligon (on the same road) that at the moment, cannot be found on geonames.usgs.gov. It might not be listed because it is a lake that is used at a church campground. Quistisffviii (talk) 11:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An advantage of lists over categories is that they can include lakes that don't have any articles yet.

For samples, you might want to have a look at:

List of lakes in New Zealand (good structure, even if there might be too many empty cells)
List of lakes in Alberta (nice presentation, the main list could be more longer),
List_of_lakes_in_Romania (interesting structure, needs wikification though)

There are others at {{Lakes in the United States}}. I think it's a good thing if the list is exhaustive to a given surface area.

As for Lake Ligon, if it exists, it can be included. -- User:Docu

More Added[edit]

Just added a bunch of Genesee County, Antrim County, and technically a Lapeer entry but in the midst of it - Wiki logged me out. =P Antrim County has a ton of lakes. Some relatives live there and I know some of the nearby lakes and my cousin gave me a bunch of names too, but not all of them are in Antrim. Quistisffviii (talk) 14:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Area icon[edit]

1) It would be nice if the sort icons were explained. 2) The area sort icon does not work correctly. It goes by digits in some way that makes some tiny lake be listed as larger than Superior.Kdammers (talk) 04:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lake Erie[edit]

Is there any particular reason why Lake Erie isn't included? Michigan has a decent amount of coastline on it, and even if it's not as much as the other Great Lakes, it still seems significant. Symphonic Spenguin (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Limiting the list[edit]

Listing all 62,798 lakes in Michigan seems problematic. Even listing all named lakes might create an overwhelming page (and arguably better for Wikidata anyway). For the sake of sanity, what about focusing this list on named lakes with over 100 acres, or lakes which have an article. Thoughts? --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 05:51, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]