WORLD GEOGRAPHY 101: The Great Lakes

the Great Lakes have always fascinated me I'm biased since I live near one of them and because of my bias that's what this video is about time to learn some important facts and just general 101 on the Great Lakes for those who don't know the Great Lakes are a group of closely connected freshwater lakes in North America they are generally considered to be five lakes superior Michigan Huron Erie and Ontario Lake st. Clair Nipigon and a bunch of smaller lakes are a part of the same system but are not considered to be Great Lakes sorry guys they were formed from receding glaciers during the last ice age 12,000 years ago in terms of Earth's history they're practically brand-new the weights are unique because there is nothing quite like them on earth they're the largest freshwater lake system on the planet so big that they're practically like seas if you live on their coast you would see ah the similarity they're Nazis though many think this is because lakes are freshwater and Caeser salty but that's not the case this is because of two factors elevation in relation to the ocean seas like the Caspian or black are at sea level which is pretty obvious while lakes such as superior are higher in elevation superior being at 601 feet above sea level while the Caspian is at 92 feet below sea level the next factor is relation to the ocean a lake is a body of water surrounded by land technically that would make the Caspian a lake but there is a elevation factor the Great Lakes while large don't connect to the ocean in a way to categorize it as a sea so they're very sea like flakes they're not seized their legs see Lake red fish blue fish all these lakes are a part of a single waterway connected either naturally or by man to be one of the most important transportation systems in the world use my native tribes Europeans and later the United States in the 18th century the Great Lakes were crucial to expanding and building the early us like how the railroad built the West the lakes built the Midwest shipping and trade propped up cities along the coast such as Cleveland Detroit Toledo and Chicago Michigan Ohio fought a war against one another over an area called the Toledo strip in order to gain more coast of Lake Erie even though today the area is considered a Rust Belt thus you to be the core of the United States most of Canada's population lives in the Great Lakes watershed with cities either on the coast of the lakes or on rivers connected to them very few live on the coast of Lake Superior though it lies on the Canadian Shield which makes farming difficult Lake Superior is the largest of them all being the largest lake by surface area second largest if you count the Caspian as a lake and third largest in volume by area it's the size of Austria even if Michigan and Huron were defined as one body superior would still be larger in terms of volume Lake Michigan and Huron surround the lower peninsula of the state of Michigan forming the distinct oven mint shape they're actually one single lake called Michigan here on both are connected to one another and were mistakenly named separately the western portion being called Michigan and the East call a Huron if corrected it'd be the largest lake in the world by surface area Lake Erie is the smallest in volume but is shared by many different cities Detroit Toledo Buffalo and Cleveland to name a few in recent years student outsourcing these once industrial cities have begun to fall to urban decay Lake Ontario is the smallest in surface area Toronto sits on its coast while the Great Lakes are extremely large and make up a prominent feature on a North American map there are not the only freshwater lakes on the continent Canada is home to almost 3 million freshwater lakes Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake are larger than Lake Erie and like Winnipeg is larger than Lake Ontario in recent years pollution and invasive species such as Asian carp have put the ecosystem of the Great Lakes at risk in fact an algae bloom fueled by pollution in Lake Erie made the drinking water too dangerous to consume for a few days I would know I was there the issue of conserving these Lakes will become an important topic in upcoming years for a water system that contains 21 percent of the world's freshwater it will be interesting to see how human development affects the Great Lakes fishing and trade are still vital to the economies of this region as well as the water from these lakes is crucial to the United States want to know more about specific region of the world or the US in general say in the comments like on Facebook and subscribe if you have not done so this is Cody from geography hub

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Views: 442,172

Rating: 4.936069 out of 5

Keywords: Geography (Field Of Study), Lake (Geographical Feature Category), The Great lakes, The Great Lakes, Geography, GeographyNow, GeographyHub, Ohio, Michigan, Canada, United States geography, Basic Geography, Midwest Geography, AlternateHistoryHub, Great Lakes (Body Of Water), Education geography, Teaching geography, Geography 101

Id: sHjwfneXRsU

Length: 5min 30sec (330 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/lambtp1182]

Thanks