Lake Superior is the largest of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by Ontario, Canada and Minnesota, United States, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and is the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume.Superior Pursuit: Facts About the Greatest Great Lake - Minnesota Sea Grant University of Minnesota. Retrieved on 2007-08-09.

Name

In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Gichigami, meaning "big water". It is also written "Gitche Gumee" as recorded by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Song of Hiawatha.

The lake was named le lac supérieur, or "Upper Lake," in the seventeenth century by French explorers because it was located above Lake Huron. It was also known as Lac Tracy during the French regime.(Nute, 1946)

Hydrography

Lake Superior has a surface area of — which is larger than South Carolina. It has a maximum length of and maximum breadth of . Its average depth is with a maximum depth of . Lake Superior contains 2,900 cubic miles (12,100 km³) of water. There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America with of water. The shoreline of the lake stretches (including islands). The lake's elevation is above sea level. American limnologist J. Val Klump was the first person to reach the lowest depth of Lake Superior on July 30, 1985, as part of a scientific expedition, which, at below sea level, is the lowest spot on the continental interior of the United States and the second lowest spot on the interior of the North American continent after the much deeper Great Slave Lake in Canada ( below sea level). (Though Crater Lake, not Lake Superior, is the deepest lake in the United States, Crater Lake's surface elevation is much higher and its deepest point is above sea level.) The average temperature of the lake during the summer is about 40 degrees farenheit.

Annual storms on Lake Superior regularly record wave heights of over . Waves well over have been recorded.

Until approximately 1887, the natural hydraulic conveyance through the St. Marys River rapids determined outflow from Lake Superior. By 1921, development in support of transportation and hydropower resulted in gates, locks, power canals, and other control structures completely spanning St. Marys rapids. The regulating structure is known as the Compensating Works and is operated according to a regulation plan known as Plan 1977-A. The current water levels, including diversions of water from the Hudson Bay watershed, are governed by the International Lake Superior Board of Control which was established in 1914 by the International Joint Commission.