Lake Champlain
A long, deep lake sometimes called the sixth Great Lake
Lake Champlain is a long, narrow, deep lake filling the lowland between Vermont's Green Mountains and New York's Adirondacks, with its northern tip reaching into the Canadian province of Quebec. About 490 square miles (1,270 km²) in area and some 400 feet (122 m) deep, it is far larger and deeper than any other lake in the Northeast outside the Great Lakes — which earned it a brief, half-joking federal designation as the "sixth Great Lake" in 1998.
Carved by glaciers and once an arm of an ancient sea, the lake drains north through the Richelieu River to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic, unusual for a U.S. lake. Strategically placed on the historic invasion route between New York and Canada, it saw pivotal naval battles in the Revolution and the War of 1812. Today it anchors Burlington, Vermont's largest city, and a string of ferry crossings and lakeside towns on both shores.