Dimensions Guide

Lake Michigan-Huron is customarily accepted as two lakes that are separate from each other. The two lakes are called as Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. They belong to the Great Lakes found in North America. But based on the hydrology of the two lakes, they show that they are just one body of water. They are connected together by the Straits of Mackinac.

Lake Dimensions

When specified as a single body of water, Lake Michigan-Huron will become the largest of all the Great Lakes nearby. The area of the lake is 45,410 square miles or 117,600 square kilometers. It is the world’s largest freshwater lake when it comes to surface area. The water volume of Lake Michigan-Huron is 2,000 cubic miles or 8,300 cubic kilometers. It makes the lake the world’s fourth largest freshwater lake when it comes to water volume.

One Lake?

Both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron have similar elevation of 176 meters or 577 feet. The two lakes are connected by Strait Mackinac that has similar elevation with the two. Mackinac Strait has a depth of 120 feet. It is pretty common that rivers and streams would separate lakes from one another. However, Mackinac Strait is not considered as a river or stream. The width of the strait ranges from 3.6 miles to five miles, similar to the lengths of most lakes in the world. By nature, the strait is just a natural narrowing of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is in oppose to the long time belief that it separates the two lakes from each other.

The water flow of Lake Michigan-Huron can be reverse from one lake to the other. Due to the connecting strait, when a water level imbalance happens, the two lakes can quickly even up the water level. Hydrologically, Lakes Michigan and Huron are truly one great lake due to the facts that they have similar water level and behavior.

The Name

Changing of historical names cannot be done that easily. The individual names of Lake Michigan-Huron are already distinct parts of the history. Aside from that, the names have been institutionalized legally between the territories that they fall under. Lake Michigan is considered to be under the American territory. Lake Huron is divided by two territories and they are the Canada and United States.

History

When the last ice age occurred, Lake Michigan-Huron is just more than one water body. Lake Huron of today is called by geologists as Lake Stanley and it is separated from Lake Michigan of today which is called by geologists as Lake Chippewa. During those times, Lake Chicago was occupying the southern end of the basin of Lake Michigan where the southern mass of the glaciers is present.