Lake Huron
Killarney Provencial Park, Ontario
Lake Huron is the third-largest of the lakes by volume, with 850 cubic miles of water. Lake Huron is hydrologically inseparable from Lake Michigan, joined by the five-miles-wide Straits of Mackinac. The Huron lakeshore extends 3,827 miles and is characterized by shallow, sandy beaches and the rocky shores of Georgian Bay. Lake Huron’s drainage area is more than twice the size of Huron’s approximately 23,000 square miles of surface water. The Saginaw River basin is intensively farmed and contains the Flint and Saginaw-Bay City metropolitan areas. Lake Huron is the second-largest of the Great Lakes in terms of surface area and ranks as the fourth-largest lake in the world.
Since the French explorers who “discovered” it knew nothing as yet of the other lakes, they called it La Mer Douce, the sweet- or fresh-water sea. A Sanson map in 1656 refers to the lake as Karegnondi.
Length - 206 miles
Breadth - 183 miles
Depth (average) - 195 feet
Depth (maximum) - 750 feet
Volume - 850 cubic miles
Shoreline Length - 3,830 miles
Water Surface Area - 23,000 square miles
Water Retention/Replacement Time - 22 years
Outlet - Saint Clair River to Lake Erie
Population - 3,000,000