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Lake Washington is a large freshwater
lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
adjacent to the city of
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
. It is the largest lake in
King County King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...
and the second largest natural lake in the state of
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, after Lake Chelan. It borders the cities of Seattle on the west, Bellevue and Kirkland on the east, Renton on the south and Kenmore on the north, and encloses Mercer Island. The lake is fed by the Sammamish River at its north end and the Cedar River at its south. Lake Washington received its present name in 1854 after Thomas Mercer suggested it be named after
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
, as the new Washington Territory had been named the year before. Earlier names for the lake include the Duwamish name ''Xacuabš'' ( Lushootseed: literally "''xacu''" ''great-amount-of-water + "abš" people''), which referred to peoples who stayed along the coastline of Lake Washington, as well as Lake Geneva by Isaac N. Ebey; Lake Duwamish in railroad surveys under Governor
Isaac Stevens Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represen ...
; At-sar-kal in a map sketched by engineer Abiel W. Tinkham; and the Chinook Jargon name, "Hyas Chuck," or "It-Kow-Chug" 'big lake'.Historical Changes to Lake Washington and Route of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, King County, Washington
Michael Chrzastowski, United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior
The lake provides sport fishing opportunities. Some species found in this lake are Coastal Cutthroat Trout,
Rainbow Trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coast ...
,
Largemouth Bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, ...
, Smallmouth Bass,
Yellow Perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Sam ...
, and
Black Crappie The black crappie (''Pomoxis nigromaculatus'') is a freshwater fish found in North America, one of the two types of crappies. It is very similar to the white crappie in size, shape, and habits, except that it is darker, with a pattern of black ...
.


Geography

A
ribbon lake A ribbon lake is a long and deep, finger-shaped lake, usually found in a glacial trough. As such, a ribbon lake is one of a number of glacial landscapes, including arêtes, corries, rock lips, rock basins and terminal moraines. Such a lake's ...
, Lake Washington is long, narrow and finger-like. Ribbon lakes are excavated by glaciers. As the Puget lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet flowed south near the end of the
Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch withi ...
, it met bands of harder and softer rock. Erosion of the softer rock was faster and a linear depression was created in the flow direction. When the glacier melted, the lake filled with the meltwater, which was retained by
moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris ( regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice sh ...
deposits. A dam can also be created by the bands of harder rock either side of the softer rock. There is usually a river at both ends of a ribbon lake, one being the inlet, and the other, the outlet—though in the case of present-day Lake Washington, inlet rivers are located at both ends, with a man-made outlet in the middle. Two
seaplane base A seaplane base is a type of airport that is located in a body of water, usually a river, bay, harbor, or lake, where seaplanes and amphibious aircraft take-off and land. History Initially following the invention of the seaplane, traditional boa ...
s,
Kenmore Air Harbor Kenmore Air Harbor is a public-use seaplane base at the northern end of Lake Washington and south of the central business district of Kenmore, Washington, U.S. It primarily serves western Washington and parts of southwestern British Columbia. ...
and Will Rogers – Wiley Post Memorial Seaplane Base, have air travel passenger terminals.


Creeks and rivers

The main inflowing rivers are the Sammamish and Cedar Rivers, with the Cedar supplying most of the water. Seasonal changes in the flow of the Sammamish are moderated by a weir at the Lake Sammamish inlet. The lake is drained by the
Lake Washington Ship Canal The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the city of Seattle, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately difference in ...
. In addition, there are numerous small creeks and rivers which feed the lake, including: * Coal Creek * Denny Creek ( O.O. Denny Park) * Fairweather Creek * Forbes Creek * Juanita Creek * Kelsey Creek * Little Creek * Lyon Creek * Mapes Creek * May Creek *
McAleer Creek McAleer Creek is an urban creek approximately six miles long, flowing from Lake Ballinger in southern Snohomish County to Lake Washington. It drains an approximately watershed.
* Mercer Slough * Ravenna Creek * Taylor Creek *
Thornton Creek Thornton Creek is of urban creeks and tributaries from southeast Shoreline through northeast Seattle to Lake Washington. Its watershed, the largest in Seattle, exhibits relatively dense biodiversity for an urban setting;Brokaw it is home to fr ...
* Yarrow Creek * Yesler Creek Historically, construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal drastically changed the inflow and outflow of the lake. Before construction of the canal in 1916, Lake Washington's outlet was the Black River, which joined the
Duwamish River {{authority control
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
Seattle metropolitan area