ZAP’S FACTS!
RIVERS & LAKES

Lake Superior holds enough water to cover both Americas a foot deep.

It's the largest freshwater lake by surface area - and contains 10% of Earth's surface fresh water.

2 min read
Lake Superior holds enough water to cover both Americas a foot deep.
THE FULL STORY

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. Spread out, its water could cover all of North and South America to a depth of about 30 centimetres. The other four Great Lakes could each fit inside it.

The lake’s water is famously cold - the deep water stays at about 4°C year-round, and even the surface only warms to around 15°C in the height of summer. That extreme chill means bacteria barely grow, which is why divers exploring the 350 or so shipwrecks at the bottom often find them strangely well preserved.

Superior gets surprisingly stormy too. Waves can reach 9 metres tall during November gales, the same season that swallowed the Edmund Fitzgerald, a giant ore carrier whose 1975 sinking inspired a famous song. The lake is large enough to create its own weather systems.

The Grand Canyon was carved by a river - over six million years.
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The Yangtze used to have its own species of freshwater dolphin.
DID YOU KNOW? The Yangtze used to have its own species of freshwater dolphin. Asia's longest river is so big it had unique dolphins - but they vanished in 2006. 2 min read
The Mississippi River sometimes flows backwards.
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