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There are 13 lakes of at least within the borders of Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota. 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 tra ...
is the largest and deepest, covering with a maximum depth of . Lake Hiawatha, 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 Edi ...
flows, has a
watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
of , two orders of magnitude 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. 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 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 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 Horace William Shaler Cleveland (December 16, 1814 – December 5, 1900) was an American landscape architect. His approach to natural landscape design can be seen in projects such as the Grand Rounds in Minneapolis; Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Conco ...
foresaw Minneapolis's growth and made a series of recommendations to the city's Board of Park Commissioners 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 sys ...
, 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 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 pa ...
. 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, 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 A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a ...
(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 Minneapolis is often considered one of the top biking and walking cities in the United States due to its vast network of trails and dedicated pedestrian areas. In 2020, Walk Score rated Minneapolis as 13th highest among cities over 200,000 people. ...
*


Notes


References

{{featured list Minnesota geography-related lists *