Lakes · Explainers
Why Do Rivers Meander? Bends, Banks and Oxbow Lakes
A river bend is not just a line drawn across a map. Water, sediment and the channel’s banks continually influence one another. Where the banks can move, that…
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Explore lakes, their locations, basins, water and changing landscapes.
Lakes · Explainers
A river bend is not just a line drawn across a map. Water, sediment and the channel’s banks continually influence one another. Where the banks can move, that…
Lakes · Map guides
A list of the Great Lakes tells you their names. A map shows how they fit together. Start with the five large water bodies, then follow the rivers…
Climate · Map guides
Explore representative Great Lakes snowbelts in the United States and Canada, with an original locator map, regional key and wind-fetch diagram.
Ontario · Lakes · Map guides
Lake Ontario has one physical shoreline and one international boundary, but it now has different names in two government systems. The naming split is new; the lake’s location,…
Xitai Jinaier Lake · Lakes · Place guides
The straight road dividing blue and green water in widely shared aerial photographs is real, but the simple captions attached to it often are not. The place is…
Lake Hallstatt, Austria · Lakes · Place guides
Hallstatt is usually introduced through photographs of a compact village beneath steep mountains. The water in those photographs is a separate geographic subject: Lake Hallstatt, a deep Alpine…
Environment · Explainers
On a hot afternoon in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, a small pool called Gaet’ale Pond is so salty that crystals crunch underfoot. On the other side of the world,…
Ecosystems & wildlife · Lists & data
On most world maps, Lake Baikal looks narrow and remote. In reality, it is a giant rift lake in southern Siberia whose depth, age, clarity, and endemic wildlife…
Bolivia · Culture · Lists & data
Lake Titicaca glitters on the Andean Altiplano between Peru and Bolivia, high enough that many first-time visitors feel the altitude the moment they step off the boat. Stretching…
Lakes · Explainers
A lake can fill a small hollow or spread across an area larger than many countries, and its name alone does not tell you whether it is fresh,…
Jordan River & the Dead Sea · Lakes · Place guides
The Jordan River threads south from the snows of Mount Hermon to the lowest land on Earth, the Dead Sea—about 251 kilometers (156 miles) of meanders through the…
Israel · Economy & resources · Comparisons
The Dead Sea’s shores stretch along Israel/West Bank to the west and Jordan to the east, meeting at Earth’s lowest dry-land elevation, roughly 1,300 feet (≈430 meters) below…