![Lakes of Minneapolis map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Lakes_of_Minneapolis_map.svg)
There are 13 lakes of at least within the borders of
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
in the U.S. state of
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
. Of these,
Bde Maka Ska
Bde Maka Ska (, previously named Lake Calhoun, its former official designation) is the largest lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and part of the city's Chain of Lakes. Surrounded by city park land and circled by bike and walking ...
is the largest and deepest, covering with a maximum depth of .
Lake Hiawatha
Lake Hiawatha is located just north of Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was purchased by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in 1922 for $550,000. At that time the lake was a marsh known as Rice Lake, but over four years, the pa ...
, through which
Minnehaha Creek
Minnehaha Creek ( dak, Mniȟáȟa Wakpádaŋ) is a 22-mile-long (35 km) tributary of the Mississippi River that flows east from Gray's Bay Dam on Lake Minnetonka through the suburban cities of Minnetonka, Hopkins, Saint Louis Park, and Edin ...
flows, has a
watershed of , two
orders of magnitude
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic dis ...
larger than the next largest watershed in the city.
Ryan Lake, in the city's north, sits partially in Minneapolis and partially in neighboring
Robbinsdale
Robbinsdale is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Hennepin County, Minnesota,. The population was 13,953 at the time of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total ...
.
Certain
other bodies of water are counted on some lists of Minneapolitan lakes, though they may fall outside the city limits or cover fewer than five acres.
Many of Minneapolis's lakes formed in the depressions left by large blocks of ice after the retreat of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet
The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million year ...
at the end of the
last glacial period and now overlie sandy or
loamy soils.
[ ] Before
the appearance of white settlers, the
Dakota
Dakota may refer to:
* Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux
** Dakota language, their language
Dakota may also refer to:
Places United States
* Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community
* Dakota, Illinois, a town
* Dakota, Minnesota, ...
harvested
wild rice
Wild rice, also called manoomin, Canada rice, Indian rice, or water oats, is any of four species of grasses that form the genus ''Zizania'', and the grain that can be harvested from them. The grain was historically gathered and eaten in both ...
from the lakes.
In the early 1800s, the lakes' shorelines were marshy, deterring large-scale settlement and development by white residents though an experimental Dakota agricultural community,
Ḣeyate Otuŋwe
Cloud Man (Dakota: ; – 1862/1863) was a Dakota chief. The child of French and Mdewakanton parents, he founded the agricultural community Ḣeyate Otuŋwe on the shores of Bde Maka Ska in 1829 after being trapped in a snowstorm for three days. T ...
, was founded on the banks of Bde Maka Ska by
Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa in 1829.
In the 1880s, landscape architect
Horace Cleveland foresaw Minneapolis's growth and made a series of recommendations to the city's
Board of Park Commissioners
Board or Boards may refer to:
Flat surface
* Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat
** Plank (wood)
** Cutting board
** Sounding board, of a musical instrument
* Cardboard (paper product)
* Paperboard
* Fiberboard
** Hardboard, a t ...
to acquire land along Minnehaha Creek, near
Minnehaha Falls
Minnehaha Park is a city park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and home to Minnehaha Falls and the lower reaches of Minnehaha Creek. Officially named Minnehaha Regional Park, it is part of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board sy ...
, and around several lakes in the southwest portion of the city in order to form a robust, interconnected park system that would aesthetically and morally benefit the city's residents. Board president
Charles M. Loring
Charles Morgridge Loring (November 13, 1833 – March 18, 1922) was an American businessman, miller and publicist. Raised in Maine to be a sea captain, Loring instead became a civic leader in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he was a wealthy flour mi ...
heeded Cleveland's advice and bought the land, later developed into a robust system of parks by
Theodore Wirth
Theodore Wirth (1863–1949) was instrumental in designing the Minneapolis system of parks. Swiss-born, he was widely regarded as the dean of the local parks movement in America. The various titles he was given included administrator of p ...
.
During this time, many of the lakes were reformed by the Board of Park Commissioners through draining, dredging, shoreline stabilization, and the construction of parkways around their perimeters.
Property in neighborhoods surrounding the lakes grew desirable, especially by the "
Chain of Lakes", five lakes in the southwestern portion of the city (Maka Ska,
Harriet,
Isles,
Cedar
Cedar may refer to:
Trees and plants
*''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae
*Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar
Places United States
* Cedar, Arizona
* ...
, and
Brownie) that were joined by artificial channels.
Various municipal symbols and icons reference the presence of the lakes in Minneapolitan life and culture, from the sailboat in the city's logo to the
ship's wheel
A ship's wheel or boat's wheel is a device used aboard a water vessel to steer that vessel and control its course. Together with the rest of the steering mechanism, it forms part of the helm. It is connected to a mechanical, electric servo, or ...
on its
flag to Minneapolis's nickname, the "City of Lakes". Much of Minneapolis's lakeshore is public parkland, in contrast to other American cities where lakeside property tends to be privately controlled.
Since they were dredged, the lakes have drawn city residents for recreation and sport including swimming, sailing, yachting, canoeing, biking, jogging, and ice skating. The
Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway
The Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board developed the system over many years. ...
passes around many of Minneapolis's lakes.
List of lakes
Other bodies of water
Some sources, including the City of Minneapolis's own
geographic information system (GIS) dataset, list up to 22 lakes within the city.
The dataset lists three lakes that are not within the city's borders:
*Mother Lake ()
*
Wirth Lake ()
*Taft Lake ()
The list includes some bodies of water smaller than five acres:
* Birch Lake ()
* Spring Lake ()
* Lake Mead ()
* Legion Lake ()
The Minneapolis GIS dataset includes two of the channels between larger bodies of water as "lakes":
* Cedar–Isles Channel ()
* Maka Ska–Isles Channel ()
Additionally, there are 46 ponds in Minneapolis.
See also
*
List of lakes in Minnesota
This is a list of lakes of Minnesota. Although promoted as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", Minnesota has 11,842 lakes of or more. The 1968 state survey found 15,291 lake basins, of which 3,257 were dry. If all basins over 2.5 acres were counted, Minn ...
*
Trails in Minneapolis
*
Notes
References
{{featured list
Minnesota geography-related lists
*