The Great Salt Lake

The western part of the conterminous United States is often thought of as being a desert without any large bodies of water. In the desert area of western Utah, however, lies Great Salt Lake, which in 1986 covered approximately 2,300 square miles and contained 30 million acre-feet of water (an acre-foot is the amount of water necessary to cover 1 acre of land with water 1 foot in depth or about 326,000 gallons). To emphasize its size, the Great Salt Lake is the largest lake west of the Mississippi River, larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware.