Minnesota lakes how many

The claim to fame is largely due to tourism organizations in the s to promote new tourists and immigrants to come to the state.

The earliest references of the phrase comes from a speech at the Minnesota State Fair by a professor on September 11, published in the Worthington Advance on September 19, In his speech, which largely focused on the economics of farming in the state, he stated:. Then we have thirty-eight rivers in the State, six of which are navigable within the State… Then come over 10, lakes, abounding in delicious fish.

The phrase became frequently used by tourism-related publications around the s. Clark, Jr. Submit your question here. You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives. Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together. That is why there are few big lakes, more medium-sized lakes, and many small ones. Lake scientists — limnologists - can make educated guesses about the number of lakes in a landscape by measuring and counting the bigger lakes and using that number to estimate or project the number of smaller lakes.

I wrote about this here: Downing et al. The global abundance and size distribution of lakes, ponds, and impoundments. Limnology and Oceanography 51 5 : When I count the lakes in Minnesota, I find that the number of lakes and waterbodies after glaciation about 10, years ago must have been around 4.

No one can know the exact number of lakes. Even satellite photographs cannot help us because many lakes and ponds are just too small or too indistinct to distinguish from the surrounding land and lakes may not even look like lakes in aerial or satellite photos.

Luckily, our friends at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are also really curious about this. They did this by creating a geographical information system GIS map from satellite photographs and calibrating it to actual measurements on the ground ground truthing.

Then, they painstakingly measured the total area and shore length of every lake, pond, reservoir, wetland, river and stream they could recognize. Where they could connect these waterbodies to names and other MNDNR information they put them into the database. The classical example of this is Upper and Lower Red Lake which was listed as one big lake as well as two separate lakes.

I removed those duplicates. Some may disagree with me on my choices on these, but I looked at this from a limnological standpoint and not from one of bragging rights. For example, Lake Minnetonka consists of 16 relatively independent basin-lakes that taken together are considered by some people to be one lake. From a scientific or limnological standpoint, a lake is independent if water and material can flow to all parts of the lake. If I considered Lake Minnetonka one lake, then all its basin-lakes would sum to about 14, acres, and collectively it would be the 12 th -largest lake in Minnesota, between Cass Lake and Ottertail Lake.

But does Minnesota really have 10, lakes? And is your Wisconsin relative right that the Badger state has more than Minnesota? Let's start with what each state defines as a lake. Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources counts anything 10 acres or more as a lake.

By that definition, Minnesota has 11, lakes. Our license plates, it turns out, are low-balling us. Wisconsin's DNR says their state has 15, lakes. Here's the catch; the Wisconsin DNR has no size requirement for its lakes.