Lake Tahoe Dining

Lake Tahoe Casinos

Lake Tahoe Golf

Lake Tahoe Skiing

Lake Tahoe Boating

Official Lake Tahoe Visitors Bureau

Save Big on Your Next Rental Car


Lake Tahoe is as long as the English Channel is wide. The Panama Canal, 700 feet wide and 50 feet deep, could be filled with Tahoe's water even if it circled the globe at the equator -- and there would still be enough water left to fill a canal of the same size running from San Francisco to New York.

If Lake Tahoe was tipped over, the water would cover California to a depth of fourteen and a half inches. (Texas would only be covered to a depth of eight and a half inches.)

The Lake is fed by 63 streams and two hot springs. An average 1,400,000 tons of water (or one-tenth of an inch) evaporates every day. That's more than is released through the Truckee River, or enough to supply the daily water requirements of 3,500,000 people.

While ice may sometimes form along the shoreline inlets, Lake Tahoe has never been known to freeze over.

Contrary to popular belief, Lake Tahoe is not the deepest lake in the world, or even in the United States. It is tenth deepest in the world and third deepest lake in North America, just behind Crater Lake, Oregon, at 1,932 feet, with a surface elevation of 6,176 feet.

As an "interstate navigable waterway," Lake Tahoe is protected by the U. S. Coast Guard (and is reputed to be the most desirable Coast Guard duty station in the world).

Courtesy of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the US Forest Service.