Infotopia

Lake Superior has a surface area of approximately 31,700 square miles, making it the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area — slightly larger than the State of South Carolina. It is 30 times larger than Rhode Island, 16 times larger than Delaware, 5 times larger than Hawaii, and 6.5 times larger than Connecticut. It holds 10% of the entire planet's surface fresh water.

It holds more water than all the other four Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) combined, plus an extra three Lake Eries for good measure. If you spread its water evenly across the landmass of North and South America, it would submerge both continents under an entire foot of water.

An estimated 350 to 550 shipwrecks rest at the bottom of Lake Superior. The most famous is the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot freighter that sank during a ferocious storm in 1975. The lake has roughly 400 good-sized islands. Isle Royale — 45 miles long and 9 miles wide — is its largest by a wide margin and the fifth- largest lake island in the world.

Because Isle Royale is so large, it has its own interior lakes (about 46 of them). The largest is Siskiwit Lake, and inside it sits Ryan Island — the largest island, in the largest lake, on the largest island, in the largest lake in the world!