What is the Size of Lake Superior?

World’s Biggest Freshwater Lake

Lake Superior is considered as the biggest of all the five Great Lakes within the North American continent. The boundaries of the lake to the north are Minnesota, United States and Ontario, Canada. The boundaries to the south are Michigan and Wisconsin of the United States. According to surface area, the size of Lake Superior is the world’s biggest freshwater lake. It is also the third biggest freshwater lake in the world according to volume.

Size of Lake Superior

The length of Lake Superior is 563 kilometers or 350 miles. The width of the lake is 257 kilometers or 160 miles. The average depth of the lake is 147 meters or 483 feet. The deepest spot that the lake has is 406 meters or 1,332 feet. The lake can hold the water volume of up to 3,000,000,000,000,000 gallons.

The size of Lake Superior according to water surface area is 82,100 square kilometers or 31,700 square miles. The drainage basin area of the lake is 127,700 square kilometers or 49,300 square miles. The shoreline length of the lake including the islands is 4,385 kilometers or 2,726 miles.

Other Figures of Lake Superior

There are about 336 tributaries to the lake which helps in maintaining the size of Lake Superior. The two largest tributaries of Lake Superior are St. Louis River of Wisconsin, United States and Nipigon River of Ontario, Canada. The lake has an elevation of 183 meters or 600 feet. The water outlet of the lake is St. Mary’s River going to Lake Huron.

With a lake like the size of Lake Superior, the water retention or water replacement time would take about 191 years. There are about 78 species of fish living within the lake. Going underwater, the average visibility of the lake is 27 feet. The lake has an average water temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees Celsius. The highest wave recorded in the lake has a height of 31 feet.

Some Facts About Lake Superior

The surface size of Lake Superior contains ten percent of the world’s freshwater. It is the only lake among the Great Lakes that has a sustainable reproduction of Lake Trout. You could combine all the other Great Lakes in North America and add three more lakes with the size similar to that of Lake Erie and Lake Superior can still hold them all. The most significant fact about Lake Superior as of the moment is that it is the cleanest lake of all the Great Lakes in North America.