Weird Fact: How Can Lake Of The Woods Have 10 Times More Shoreline Than Lake Superior?

I get the logic behind it, but I really still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Lake Of The Woods supposedly has more shoreline than Lake Superior. How can the world's largest freshwater lake not have more shoreline than a smaller lake?

Lake Of The Woods size

Lake Of The Woods is located on the Minnesota and Canadian border. The lake is 85 miles long and 56 miles wide. That makes it cover an area of 1,727 miles.

Lake Superior Size

Compare that to the area that Lake Superior covers and it isn't even close. Lake Superior holds 10% of the world's surface fresh water and is 31,700 square miles.

Way more than Lake Of The Woods! But how could Lake Of The Woods have more shoreline? Let's compare.

Lake Superior's shoreline goes from 350 miles from west to east and is 160 miles wide. It has 2,800 miles of shoreline. That seems like a lot, but Lake Of The Woods has a shoreline of 25,000 miles. That's almost 10 times that of Lake Superior.

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If you count the island shoreline, Lake Of The Woods wins.

Lake of The Woods has 14,522 islands. Adding up the shoreline of those in with the edges of the lakes gives you that incredible number of 25,000 miles.

You could dream about a different island each night for 39 years.

Lake of the Woods has so many islands that you could literally dream of a different one every night for almost 40 years. That's incredible!  I found that and other interesting facts from Northern Ontario Travel Magazine. Just look at how many islands are in Canada's Northeast area.

So there you have it. A Lake much smaller than the world's largest freshwater lake actually has more shoreline. Share this weird fact and win a bet with your friends!

Check out this cool video that shows the Eastern shores of Lake Of The Woods where all the islands are. It's beautiful!