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 –

• 

   A view of the six lowest (and largest) lakes of the Seven Rila Lakes

• 

   Thunder Lake in Northern Alberta

• 

   A view of Isojärvi in Satakunta, Western Finland

• 

   A view of West Lake in Hangzhou, China

• 

   A view of Goëngarijpsterpoelen, one of the Frisian Lakes

• 

   A view of Lake Teletskoye, the largest lake in the Altai Mountains and the Altai Republic, Russia

Introduction

Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Indonesia is the largest volcanic lake in the world

A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and set apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger oceans, they do form part of the Earth's water cycle. Lakes are distinct from lagoons, which are generally coastal parts of the ocean. Lakes are typically larger and deeper than ponds, which also lie on land, though there are no official or scientific definitions. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which usually flow in a channel on land. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams.

Natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers, where a river channel has widened into a basin. 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.

Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for industrial or agricultural use, for hydro-electric power generation or domestic water supply, for aesthetic or recreational purposes, or for other activities. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Plants in pond habitat

Lobelia dortmanna, Dortmann's cardinalflower or water lobelia, is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae. This stoloniferous herbaceous perennial aquatic plant with basal leaf-rosettes and flower stalks grows to 0.7–2 m (2.3–6.6 ft) tall. The flowers are 1–2 cm long, with a five-lobed white to pale pink or pale blue corolla, produced in groups of one to ten on an erect raceme held above the water surface. The fruit is a capsule 5–10 mm long and 3–5 mm wide, containing numerous small seeds.

The leaves are almost cylindrical, blunt, 2.5–7.5 cm long and evergreen. They have no functional stomata. It is one of several unrelated species of plants from low nutrient lakes known as isoetids, owing to their superficial similarity to Isoetes. The leaves of Lobelia dortmanna are, however, easily distinguishable from those of other isoetids in having only two air-canals (Isoetes having four and most others several) and in the presence of milky sap. The plant has the unusual ability of removing carbon dioxide from the rooting zone rather than from the atmosphere. (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

Need assistance?

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.

• 

  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)

• 

  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)

• 

  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (from Lake)

• 

  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)

• 

  Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps (from Lake)

• 

  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)

• 

  There are some 187,888 lakes in Finland larger than 500 square metres. Isojärvi is Finland's 97th-largest lake. (from Lake)

• 

  Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (from Subglacial lake)

• 

  The shores of Lake Peipus, the fifth-largest lake in Europe, near the town of Kallaste in Estonia (from Lake)

• 

  Lake of Flowers (Liqeni i Lulëve), one of the Lurë Mountains glacial lakes, Albania (from Lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)

• 

  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)

• 

  Lake Sevan is the largest body of water in Armenia and the Caucasus region. It is one of the largest freshwater high-altitude (alpine) lakes in Eurasia. (from Lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from Lake)

• 

  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from Lake)

• 

  Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake)

• 

  Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada (from Lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Indonesia is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Lake)

• 

  Peyto Lake in Alberta, Western Canada (from Lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  The Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea (from Lake)

• 

  Atro/Attar Lake and pass, Ishkoman Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan (from Lake)

• 

  The Seven Rila Lakes are a group of glacial lakes in the Bulgarian Rila mountains. (from Lake)

• 

  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (from Lake)

• 

  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  Round Tangle Lake, one of the Tangle Lakes, 2,864 feet (873 m) above sea level in interior Alaska (from Lake)

• 

  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia, Canada, is impounded by lava flows comprising The Barrier (from Volcanogenic lake)

• 

  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)

• 

  View of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia which is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Volcanogenic lake)

• 

  Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)

• 

  Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes, as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic (from Lake)

Related portals

• 
  Biology
• 
  Environment
• 
  Fish
• 
  Geography
• 
  Islands
• 
  Oceans
• 
  Rivers
• 
  Trees
• 
  Underwater diving
• 
  Water
• 
  Wetlands
• 
  World

WikiProjects

• WikiProject Lakes
• WikiProject Rivers
• WikiProject Oceans
• WikiProject Water

Categories

Select [►] to view subcategories

Lakes

Categories by lake

Lakes by city

Lakes by continent

Lakes by country

Lakes by mountain range

Lakes by type

Populated lakeshore places

Lists of lakes

Chains of lakes

Extraterrestrial lakes

Lakes in fiction

Lake groups

Lake islands

Lake organisms

River and lake piracy

Reservoirs

Shipwrecks in lakes

Tributaries by lake

Lake stubs

Wikipedia categories named after lakes

More articles

Associated Wikimedia

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

• 
  Commons
  Free media repository
• 
  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals
• 
  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base
• 
  Wikinews
  Free-content news
• 
  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations
• 
  Wikisource
  Free-content library
• 
  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools
• 
  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

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

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 
  List of all portals
• 
  The arts portal
• 
  Biography portal
• 
  Current events portal
• 
  Geography portal
• 
  History portal
• 
  Mathematics portal
• 
  Science portal
• 
  Society portal
• 
  Technology portal
• 
  Random portal
• 
  WikiProject Portals