What is the Largest Lake in Every US State?

The United States is home to some of the world's most famous and important lakes, from the Great Lakes to the Great Salt Lake. Let's take a quick look at the largest lake that's contained within the borders of each of the 50 states, a topic that rules out the Great Lakes and others shared by multiple states. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching! Alphabetized timestamps are below.

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TIMESTAMPS for your convenience:
Biggest Lake in Alabama: 12:00
Biggest Lake in Alaska: 18:32
Biggest Lake in Arizona: 6:17
Biggest Lake in Arkansas: 9:50
Biggest Lake in California: 15:46
Biggest Lake in Colorado: 3:50
Biggest Lake in Connecticut: 3:09
Biggest Lake in Delaware: 0:30
Biggest Lake in Florida: 17:42
Biggest Lake in Georgia: 8:27
Biggest Lake in Hawaii: 1:03
Biggest Lake in Idaho: 13:23
Biggest Lake in Illinois: 6:58
Biggest Lake in Indiana: 4:11
Biggest Lake in Iowa: 4:56
Biggest Lake in Kansas: 5:15
Biggest Lake in Kentucky: 10:33
Biggest Lake in Louisiana: 17:21
Biggest Lake in Maine: 12:20
Biggest Lake in Maryland: 2:48
Biggest Lake in Massachusetts: 6:36
Biggest Lake in Michigan: 5:36
Biggest Lake in Minnesota: 16:37
Biggest Lake in Mississippi: 7:20
Biggest Lake in Missouri: 11:14
Biggest Lake in Montana: 16:15
Biggest Lake in Nebraska: 7:42
Biggest Lake in Nevada: 14:42
Biggest Lake in New Hampshire: 10:10
Biggest Lake in New Jersey: 1:48
Biggest Lake in New Mexico: 8:04
Biggest Lake in New York: 10:53
Biggest Lake in North Carolina: 9:10
Biggest Lake in North Dakota: 16:59
Biggest Lake in Ohio: 4:31
Biggest Lake in Oklahoma: 13:45
Biggest Lake in Oregon: 11:37
Biggest Lake in Pennsylvania: 3:28
Biggest Lake in Rhode Island: 2:29
Biggest Lake in South Carolina: 14:20
Biggest Lake in South Dakota: 14:04
Biggest Lake in Tennessee: 8:50
Biggest Lake in Texas: 15:04
Biggest Lake in Utah: 18:02
Biggest Lake in Vermont: 1:26
Biggest Lake in Virginia: 5:58
Biggest Lake in Washington: 12:39
Biggest Lake in West Virginia: 2:08
Biggest Lake in Wisconsin: 15:26
Biggest Lake in Wyoming: 13:00
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Hey, I'm Gavin! I'm better known as Chicago Geographer or CG online. My videos are about geography and GeoGuessr, and this is currently my part-time career after graduating from the University of Chicago. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss my latest videos, and thanks for stopping by!
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#geography #lakes #unitedstates #greatlakes #usa
us lakes
american lakes
freshwater lakes
largest lakes
biggest lakes
world lakes

[bonecanoe]

Someone from Minnesota needs to rank all 10, 000 lakes from best to worst.

[nkg]

that "amongus" review of the lake in Hawaii had me rolling; we gotta find that guy and fly him out to see his amogus lake once and for all

[barefacedyeti]

Now we need a list with only natural lakes and a separate list for only manmade lakes

[CobaltYoshi]

Kinda surprised that Massachusetts's largest lake wasn't Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, but after looking it up, it's actually quite small.

The fact that its largest lake, or reservoir, is surrounded by undeveloped land probably does help the water quality a lot. I've noticed that their water is a lot better than other states.

[ConnorLangkopf]

6:35 Another fun fact about the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts is that 4 whole towns (Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, & Prescott) were flooded to make it.

[yinyangsepticruski]

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES MENTIONED! I used to live there in my childhood. I now live in South Florida, but I miss living in Truth or Consequences (And yes, I did use to swim in the lake 😂). Fond memories were made there; Great video man!

[michaelimbesi]

Fun fact about Somersville Lake in WV. Normally, the USACE names dams after either the nearest town or the river they’re on. But the nearest town to the Somersville Dam was the former town of Gad. The Corps realized that Gad Dam wasn’t going to fly because of how it sounded, and that Gauley Dam wasn’t much better, so they had to call it Somersville Dam.

[lamontprice]

The Lake w/swirl on the thumbnail is BearLake, Idaho/Utah.

[pastorjerrykliner]

Somewhat apocryphal, but the West Virginia legend says that when "Summersville" Dam was built, there was a village near the dam-site called "Gad." It was the Army Corps of Engineers' custom to name the dam and the lake after the nearest town (or village) but nobody in their right mind wanted to call it the "Gad Dam" so they named it after Summersville...which is nowhere really near the dam or even the lakeshore. Various people say that the village of Gad was just on the other side of the dam-site so now is under water...so it's kind of hard to prove whether the story is fact or a bit of folk history. But it's fun either way.

[bringbackdislikes]

The street view you showed for Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota was actually primarily showing Lake Audubon. The two lakes are separated by an embankment formed by US Highway 83, and the two lakes have been as much as 41' different in surface elevation when the reservoir side is particularly low.

The Snake Creek pumping station on the north end of the highway embankment pumps water from Sakakawea to Audubon, maintaining a target surface elevation of about 1847' ASL for Lake Audubon due to irrigation and water supply requirements.

[indigo]

Awesome video! I’d love to see a video about Canada’s largest lakes by province. There’s a lot of big lakes there!

[ShonnMorris]

Great video. So many states have beautiful largest lakes. My state, CA, has the Salton Sea which stinks to high heaven most of the time.

[garrotmon]

The great salt pake is probably larger than lliamna lake right now. With last year and this year both having very wet years, causing it to go up a ton over those years

[RCgeo]

I went to Lake Guntersville a few days ago! Beautiful lake, there's an incredible sunset spot there at Weathington Park

[pencilvulture]

Candlewood Lake 😍 for whatever reason the US Census has 5 separate communities all named after Candlewood Lake: Candlewood Isle, Candlewood Knolls, Candlewood Lake Club, Candlewood Orchards, and Candlewood Shores

[xenialafleur]

What's weird is that Houghton Lake in Michigan is a 6 hour drive from Houghton, MI.

[bengolding]

Love this video! Massive fan of all your videos (your US GeoGuessr skills are amazing...) but I love these state run downs. Your Highest Point in Every State is one of my all time faves! Thank you for always making awesome content, CG!

[Shaquille]

Awesome video! Love these more informative ranking style ones. Would be cool too see this same list but for Canadian provinces!

[DamonNomad]

Not only is Lake Michigan the largest lake entirely in the US, it's the largest lake (by surface area) in the world that is entirely within one country (Lake Baikal, in Russia, is larger by volume, but has a smaller surface area).

[Jo]

I have driven past blue mesa reservior on US-50 and it truly does have stunning eye candy scenery. Very underrated part of colorado if you ask me