Wikipedia:Version 0.5 Set Nominations/Lakes and seas

Lakes and seas

For geographical items we have now nominated continents, countries, world cities, oceans and rivers. The only missing part of the "water" based section would seem to be lakes and seas - hence this nomination. I also added a few important shipping lanes & canals. As with rivers, this list limited just to really major ones.

• List of lakes

Africa

• Lake Tanganyika Start. 2nd largest in world by volume, 2nd deepest.
• Lake Victoria Mediocre B. Largest lake in Africa by area.

Asia

• Aral Sea Start - only really covers the ecological disaster
• Caspian Sea Mediocre B.
• Dead Sea Very nice B, close to A.
• Sea of Galilee Weak B. Historically important
• Lake Baikal Mediocre B, biggest lake in the world by volume.

Europe

• None listed - unless Lake Geneva, Lake Balaton or

North America

• Great Lakes Nice article (Good B, just lacks refs), covers all the major N. American lakes
• Great Salt Lake GA, largest salt lake in West, location for Salt Lake City.

South America

• Lake Titicaca Start, close to B. Largest lake in South America.

(Lake Maracaibo would have been included, but the article is just too poor at present).

Possibles:

• Lake Toba: Start. Formed from volcanic eruptions, last eruption 70,000 years ago was probably the largest in the world in the last 2 million years.
• Issyk Kul: Start, 2nd largest mountain lake in the world (after Titicaca). (+ a favourite of mine!)
• Lake Tahoe: Looks A-Class, small lake but major tourist site in US (hence this SUV name!).

Seas

Many large seas have only Start-class articles, and only the really major ones are included here.

• Sea includes a complete list of seas.
• South China Sea Decent B.
• Baltic Sea Very nice B.
• Black Sea B-Class, ALREADY in V0.5.
• Persian Gulf Start, protected.
• Red Sea B.
• Bay of Bengal Very short Start, but usable, important location for Indian geography. I added {{expand}}
• Caribbean Sea Nice B. Large sea, important culture.
• North Sea Only Start, but important sea in Europe. I tagged it for expansion.
• Mediterranean Sea B.
• Gulf of Mexico Start

Important shipping lanes/canals

• Strait of Malacca Poor B. Carries 20-25% of world sea trade
• Suez Canal B
• (Panama Canal FA is already included)
• English Channel B, article says busiest seaway in the world
• Saint Lawrence Seaway Mediocre B. Vast series, connect Great Lakes to the ocean
• Erie Canal Possible A, very nice piece on this historically important canal - it opened up the Midwest.
• Grand Canal of China B. Ancient engineering marvel, about 1000 miles long, passes through Beijing.

Along with the rivers, I think that covers most of the bodies of water we need for V0.5! Walkerma 04:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I like it; although I don't have a real good geographic/historic background, it looks like a good set to complete the superset of watery articles. Nifboy 17:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I nominated Caspian Sea at the Article Creation and Improvement Drive. Hopefully they will help clean it up. --Lethargy 18:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with these, although I feel we should include a few more. Some possibilities (in no particular order):

Other possibilities

• List of world's largest lakes
• Lake Vostok - a subglacial lake, the largest in Antarctica.
• Lake Superior - North America's largest, largest freshwater by area, and second largest on earth.
• Lake Chad - "economically very important, providing water to more than 20 million people living in the four countries which surround it — Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria."
• Hudson Bay - a massive bay in Canada.

Reservoirs

There are also several reservoirs we could include, off the top of my head:

• Lake Powell and Lake Mead - both on the Colorado River.
• If there is a name for the reservoir behind Three Gorges Dam, that would be a likely candidate.

--Lethargy 14:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Rejected

These are too early in development to be considered.

• Lake Nicaragua - largest in Central America, 20th in the world.
• Great Bear Lake - eighth largest on Earth.
• Great Slave Lake - deepest in North America, tenth largest in the world.
• Pyramid Lake - a large salt lake in Nevada.
• Lake Bonneville - prehistoric lake that covered much of Utah and small parts of Nevada and Idaho.
• Lake Lahontan - prehistoric lake in western Nevada, covered small portions of California and Oregon.
• Glacial Lake Missoula - another prehistoric lake, this one in Montana.
• Lake Ladoga - largest in Europe
• Lake Eyre - largest in Australia
• Lake Balkhash - "second largest in Central Asia after the Aral Sea." Fourteenth largest overall, third largest salt lake.

The list of largest lakes is great, but the other lakes will have to be reviewed carefully - many of them are just Start-Class. When I put together the original list, I tried to limit the number of Start-Class articles - there are only three on the main list, all REALLY important (Aral Sea, Titicaca and Tanganyika). I reviewed and rejected several on your list such as Lake Balkhash (even though I've seen it and am partial to it!) for this reason. Another factor is importance - either proximity to human settlement/tourism, or geological/geographical - that's why Lake Geneva (2nd biggest FW lake in Europe) might be considered more important than Great Slave Lake, despite its smaller size. The Great Lakes need to be discussed - I think the joint article is a nice one and covers them well, but if everyone wants the individual ones too (though often only Starts) we could go that route. I think Lake Ladoga and Hudson Bay look usable, and Lake Chad may be important enough to include as a Start, but what do others think? I think we should definitely consider adding Three Gorges Dam and probably Hoover Dam too so we don't miss these. As for the reservoirs, Lake Mead is important but only Start-Class, but Lake Powell is a B - I could go either way on those two. Walkerma 16:06, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of including the largest lake from each continent, that is why I put Lake Superior on the list. But yes, we need to discuss this further, perhaps we should see if we can get anyone else from Wikipedia:WikiProject Lakes to chime in? --Lethargy 17:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

All those I have moved to the rejected section are too short, too messy, or not important enough to be included. I added this section so people can see what has already been proposed. --Lethargy 00:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your work on this, and for being so understanding too. I'm not an expert on this topic, so your expertise is extremely welcome. I also appreciate your posting on WP:Lakes. Hopefully by the next version we can include everything above! Thanks, Walkerma 03:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I tagged all of the ones that were not on the rejected list, except for Lakes Geneva & Balaton which need a bit more work. Hopefully we'll get them next time around. Canals were placed under the continents with the rivers, the others were placed (also by continent where appropriate) in the bodies of water section Walkerma 03:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)