Did You Know?

[Lee Borgersen]

                    Lakes, rivers, and wetlands facts

General:

Minnesota's waters flow outward in three directions:
 North to Hudson Bay in Canada
 East to the Atlantic Ocean
 South to the Gulf of Mexico

Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota is the largest water-based park in the National Park System.


By the numbers

Counties with no natural lakes:
 Mower, Olmsted, Pipestone, Rock

Number of lakes:
 11,842 (10+ acres)

Number of natural rivers and streams:
 6,564 (69,200 miles)

Wetlands acreage present in 1850:
 18.6 million acres
 
Wetlands acreage present in 2008:
 10.6 million acres


Names

Ten most common lake names:
 Mud, Long, Rice, Bass, Round, Horseshoe, Twin, Island, Johnson, Spring


In-Depth

Deepest inland lake:
 Portsmouth Mine Pit near Crosby (450 feet and rising)

Deepest natural lake:
 Lake Saganaga, Cook County (240 feet deep)

Depths of other lakes:

Name County Maximum Depth
Lake Superior -- 1,290 feet
Ten Mile Cass 209 feet
Lower LaSalle Hubbard 204 feet
Loon Lake Cook 202 feet
Rainy St. Louis 161 feet
Leech Cass 150 feet
Cass Beltrami / Cass 120 feet
Otter Tail Otter Tail 120 feet
Minnetonka Hennepin 113 feet
Vermillion St. Louis 76 feet
Winnibigoshish Cass 70 feet
Mille Lacs Mille Lacs 42 feet
Upper Red Beltrami 18 feet

 


Size and Length

Ten largest lakes (entire lake within borders of Minnesota):
1.Red Lake (both "Upper" and "Lower") - 288,800 acres
2.Mille Lacs Lake - 132,516 acres
3.Leech Lake - 111,527 acres
4.Lake Winnibigoshish - 58,544 acres
5.Lake Vermilion - 40,557 acres
6.Lake Kabetogama - 25,760 acres
7.Mud Lake (Marshall County) - 23,700 acres
8.Cass Lake - 15,596
9.Lake Minnetonka - 14,004 acres
10.Otter Tail Lake - 13,725 acres

Largest border lakes:
 Lake Superior (20,364,800 acres total with 962,700 acres in Minnesota)
 Lake of the Woods (950,400 acres total with 307,010 acres in Minnesota)

Longest shoreline:
 Lake Vermilion, St. Louis County (290 miles of shoreline)

Minnesota River length:
 370 miles

Mississippi River length in Minnesota:
 680 miles

State and national Wild and Scenic Rivers:
 589 miles

Total Area Covered by Lakes and Rivers (deep water):
 2,560,299 acres

Total surface water area including wetlands:
 13,136,357 acres

And now you know more than you did before