Lake Itasca
Sign in to saveAlso known as Itasca
lake in Clearwater County, northern Minnesota, United States
Key facts
- Location
- Itasca State Park , Clearwater County, Minnesota, US
- Type
- Glacial
- Primary inflows
- Nicolet Creek, Elk Lake outlet stream
- Primary outflows
- Mississippi River
- Basin countries
- United States
- Surface area
- 1.8 sq mi (4.7 km )
- Average depth
- 20–35 ft (6–11 m)
- Surface elevation
- 1,475 ft (450 m)
- Islands
- Schoolcraft Island
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- glacial lake
- Country
- United States
- Located in
- Clearwater County
- Area
- 4.7
- Elevation
- 450
- Image
- MississippiRiverHeadwaters.jpg
- Width
- 0.63
- Length
- 5.4
Show 7 more facts
- vertical depth
- 11
- Commons category
- Lake Itasca
- outflows
- Mississippi River
- located in protected area
- Itasca State Park
- drainage basin
- Mississippi River drainage basin
- basin country
- United States
- described by source
- New International Encyclopedia
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Lake Itasca (/aɪˈtæskə/ eye-TASS-kə) is a small glacial lake, approximately 4.7 square kilometres (470 hectares; 1,200 acres) in area. It is located in Itasca State Park, in south-eastern Clearwater County, in the Headwaters area of north-central Minnesota, and is notable for being the headwater of the Mississippi River. It has a range depth of 20 to 35 feet (5 to 10 m) and is 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level.
The Ojibwe name for the lake is Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan (Elk Lake). The first European explorers in the area were French Canadian and they named the lake Lac Labiche (Doe Lake, often mistranslated as Elk Lake). The name was later changed by Henry Schoolcraft to "Itasca", coined from a combination of the dog Latin phrase veritas caput (intended to mean "true head [of the Mississippi]"). It is one of several examples of pseudo-Native American place names created by Schoolcraft.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Lake Itasca” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
On the map
2 mapped locations