Interesting Facts 99

The Great Lakes are Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

The Great Lakes are the most important inland waterway in North America. All the lakes, except Lake Michigan, which lies entirely in the United States, are shared by the United States and Canada and form part of the border between these countries.

The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.

The Great Lakes have a combined area of 94,230 square miles – larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont combined.

The coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

      The earth’s surface contains 196,950,711 square miles (510,100,000 square kilometers).