Welcome to the second in the series on the world’s largest lakes, the header on the first of the five Great Lakes: Superior. While the Caspian Sea is a bit of a controversial choice as a “lake,” there is absolutely no question¹ that Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater body of water, at 82,103 km² (31,700 sq. mi.), or roughly the same size as Scotland. Superior is also known as ᑭᒋᑲᒥ (Gichi-gami) in Anishinaabemowin by the local Native peoples, which translates as “Great Sea.”

The basin that is now Lake Superior formed over a billion years ago, when a failed mid-continental rift temporarily split a large part of North America. Much later, Superior formed in the wake of the last glacial period, as the massive glaciers that once covered much of the continent scraped the basin clean, and then filled it with glacial meltwater as they later retreated.

The human history of Lake Superior begins approximately 10,000 years ago, when the Plano people first began hunting caribou in the region, while the first permanent settlements date to around 7,000 years ago, when early ancestors of the Ojibwe and the Cree established themselves in the area. Today, the lake is split between the United States and Canada, with the southern and western parts of the lake in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while the northeastern side of the lake is in Ontario. The largest cities on the lake are Duluth, Minnesota and Thunder Bay, Ontario, both of which are important shipping hubs that connect rail lines from the west to ships that sail the length of the Great Lakes and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Ecologically, Lake Superior is generally much cleaner and more natural than the other Great Lakes, due to more limited human activity along the shore, and is a major fish habitat. The rugged shorelines and forested islands of the lake are also home to many major mammalian species like black bears, deer, wolves, and moose. Not all species are thriving though – the caribou near the lake are in danger of extirpation due to habitat loss, and only two small populations remain, one on the Slate Islands and another on the appropriately named Caribou Island, both on the Ontario side of the lake. The latter is the world’s southernmost population of the boreal woodland caribou.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and I hope you have a great day!

1. OK, Lake Baikal in Russia is actually larger than Lake Superior by volume due to its tremendous depth, but I’m proceeding down the list by area^†. Deal with it, Lake Baikal fans.
   
   † OK again, hydrologically speaking, Huron-Michigan is one lake and it’s technically larger than Superior, but geographical categorization is all kinda made up anyway so let’s just roll with it. ↩︎