Lake · Canada
Lake Winnipeg
Lake Winnipeg is a huge lake in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is the third-largest freshwater lake that lies entirely inside Canada, and its name means 'muddy waters' in the Cree language.
Picture credit: Vince pahkala (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Shahnoor Habib Munmun (CC BY 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Winnipeg?
Countries on its shores: Canada.
Middle of the lake: 52.12° N, 97.25° W
The story behind it
Lake Winnipeg is about 416 kilometres long and has two parts: a wide northern basin and a narrower southern basin. Although it is huge, it is quite shallow, only about 12 metres deep on average. Big rivers such as the Red River, the Winnipeg River and the Saskatchewan River flow into it, and the Nelson River carries the water north to Hudson Bay. The Cree gave the lake its name, which means 'muddy waters'. Fishers catch lots of walleye and whitefish here; together these two fish make up more than nine out of every ten fish caught for sale. The biggest islands include Hecla, Black, Berens and Reindeer Island. The lake also has a problem: too many nutrients wash into it, and this makes tiny living things called cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, grow in huge numbers.
Find it on the globe
Lake Winnipeg is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is Lake Winnipeg?
Lake Winnipeg covers about 24 500 km² and is about 416 kilometres long. It is Canada's sixth-largest freshwater lake.
What does the name Winnipeg mean?
The name comes from the Cree word wīnipēk, which means 'muddy waters'. The Winnipeg River, one of the rivers that flow into the lake, carries the same name.
Where does the water of Lake Winnipeg go?
It flows out at the northern end through the Nelson River. This river carries the water all the way to Hudson Bay.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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