California Central Valley Portal

Tulare Lake is an extinct fresh-water lake that was formerly the largest to be completely enclosed within the territories of the Unites States. During wet years it was the terminus of the western hemisphere's southernmost (Chinook) salmon run, and was written about by Mark Twain. The lake was named for tule, a giant species of bulrush that, once plentiful, lined the marshes and sloughs of its shores. Image File history File links Portal. ... A man-made lake in Keukenhof, Netherlands A lake is a body of water or other liquid of considerable size surrounded by land. ... Binomial name Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Walbaum, 1792) The Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) (derived from Russian чавыча), is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. ... The San Joaquin River, 330 miles (530 km) long, is the second-longest river in California, United States. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, the lead section of this article may need to be expanded. ... Binomial name Schoenoplectus acutus (Muhl. ... The term bulrush (or sometimes as bullrush) typically refers to tall, herbaceous plants that grow in wetlands. ...

The lake and its surviving wetlands lie in the southern portion of California's San Joaquin Valley, about forty miles south of Fresno, that existed over one hundred years ago since prehistoric times. Yokuts tribesmen built sedge-boats and fished in this lake before the arrival of American settlers. The lake and its large marshes were once an important fishery: in 1888, in one three-month period, 73,500 pounds of fish were shipped through Hanford to San Francisco. It was also the source of a regional favorite, Pacific pond turtles, which were relished as Terrapin Soup in San Francisco and elsewhere. It was also a significant stop for hundreds of thousands of birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway. In the wake of the Civil War, land speculators from the American Northeast drained the bordering marshes, and in the twentieth century corporate agribusiness drained the lake itself; it is now a shallow basin of fertile earth within the most productive agricultural region of the United States. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Nickname: Fresno, the All American City & Raisin Capital of the World Location in the state of California County Fresno Mayor Alan Autry Area    - City 271. ... The Yokuts were an ethnic group of Native Americans that lived in California. ... Genera See text The family Cyperaceae, or the Sedge family, is a taxon of monocot flowering plants that superficially resemble grasses or rushes. ... Hanford is the county seat of Kings County, California. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... The Pacific Flyway is one of the four major migration route for waterfowl in the United States, Canada and Mexico. ... Among the states, remote California played the least role in the American Civil War. ... The term Yankee refers to citizens of the United States, particularly Northerners, especially those Americans from New England whose ancestors arrived from Great Britain before 1700. ... Corporate farming is a critical, negative term that describes the business of agriculture, specifically, what is seen by some as the practices of would-be megacorporations involved in food production on a very large scale. ...

The lake was "reclaimed" (emptied and dried up) over the course of a few decades as the Kaweah, Kern, Kings and Tule rivers, were diverted upstream and canals were built to drain the lake. In fact, aggressive groundwater pumping since the draining of the lake has resulted in a significant lowering of the water table, causing subsidence of the land. Kaweah River is a river in Tulare County, California, located in the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains. ... The Kern River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately 155 mi (249 km) long. ... The Kings River is a major river of California, USA. It arises in the Sierra Nevada, in three forks. ... Tule River is a river in Tulare County, California. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Channel (geography). ... Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of geologic formations. ... Cross section showing the water table varying with surface topography as well as a perched water table The water table or phreatic surface is the surface where the water pressure is equal to atmospheric pressure. ...

In 1849, the lake measured 570 square miles. Its size fluctuated from year to year due to varying levels of rainfall and snowfall, but it ranked as the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. By the end of the nineteenth century the lake had almost completely disappeared. Because the lake's basin remains, the lake occasionally reappears during floods following unusually high levels of precipitation, as it did in 1997. The Great Lakes from space The Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes in North America on or near the Canada-United States border. ...

The expression "out in the tules," referring to the sedge that lined the lakeshore, is still common in the dialect of old southern Californian families and means "beyond far away." Genera See text The family Cyperaceae, or the Sedge family, is a taxon of monocot flowering plants that superficially resemble grasses or rushes. ...

See also

• Wetlands
• Aquatic ecosystems
• Ramsar Convention

A subtropical wetland in Florida, USA, with an endangered American Crocodile. ... An estuary mouth and coastal waters, part of an aquatic ecosystem. ... The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, i. ...

External links

• Tulare Lake Map from 1874

• Tulare Lake Map overlaid on modern Keyhole (Google Earth) map, with cities (approximate)

• June 2005 aerial view of remaining Tulare Lake Basin reservoir.

• Wildlife of Tulare Lake