ZMT: Daily Fact: Which of the Great Lakes is the greatest of them all?

Daily Fact: Which of the Great Lakes is the greatest of them all?

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Original photo by ehrlif/ iStock

Lake Superior is the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area.

H.O.M.E.S.: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. That's the order in which American schoolchildren learn to recall the Great Lakes. But if you were to remember the sea-sized lakes according to their size, Lake Superior would come first. At 31,700 square miles — the approximate size of the state of South Carolina — Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes. It also happens to be the world's largest freshwater lake by surface area, holding more than 10% of the planet's surface fresh water. (Close to 70% of Earth's remaining fresh water is inaccessible, stored frozen in glaciers, ice caps, and permafrost.)

While each of the Great Lakes is massive, Lake Superior's size is staggering. Reaching a maximum depth of 406 meters (about 1,332 feet), Superior is the coldest and deepest of its sister lakes. It contains about 3 quadrillion gallons of water — half of the water in all the Great Lakes. And while water from Lake Superior feeds into Lake Huron, scientists believe that Superior retains water so well that it would take 191 years to empty if it never received another drop.

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Numbers Don't Lie

Species of fish found in Lake Superior, including sturgeon, trout, and pike

80+

Rivers that feed into Lake Superior, from both the U.S. and Canada

200+

Length (in miles) of the Great Lakes Circle Tour, a scenic route around the five lakes

6,500+

People supplied with drinking water from the Great Lakes (about 12% of the U.S. population)

40 million+

The world's largest freshwater island is inside Lake Huron.

Humans have long explored the Great Lakes' rugged waters, coming across thousands of islands along the way — about 30,000, to be exact. While many of these islands are as tiny as boulders, some are exceptional in size, such as Manitoulin Island, the world's largest freshwater island. Situated within the waters of Lake Huron, Manitoulin Island measures 100 miles in length and is large enough that it contains 108 lakes. Some of those basins are sizable enough to contain their own islands, like Lake Mindemoya, which is home to the 87-acre Treasure Island, aka the world's largest natural island in a lake on an island in a lake. Unlike many of the Great Lakes' smaller islets, Manitoulin Island isn't uninhabited; because of its close proximity to Ontario, the Canadian island has a year-round population of more than 14,300 people, and is a popular spot among vacationers and tourists.

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Daily Fact: Which of the Great Lakes is the greatest of them all?