Lake Pend Oreille
lake in Kootenai and Bonner counties in Idaho, United States

Lake Pend Oreille ( POND-ə-RAY) in the northern Idaho Panhandle is the largest lake in the U.S. state of Idaho and the 40th-largest lake by area in the United States, with a surface area of 148 square miles (380 km2). It is 69 kilometres (43 mi) long, and 1,152 feet (351 m) deep in some regions, making it the fifth-deepest in the nation and having a volume of 43,939,940 acre feet = 54 km3. The lake is fed by the Clark Fork River and the Pack River, and drains into the Pend Oreille River, as well as subsurfacely into the Spokane Valley–Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer.
It is surrounded by national forests and a few small towns, with the largest population on the lake at Sandpoint. The majority of the shoreline is non-populated and all but the southern tip of the lake is in Bonner County. The southern tip is in Kootenai County and is home to Farragut State Park, formerly the Farragut Naval Training Station during World War II, of which a small part is still active and conducts U.S. Navy acoustic underwater submarine research.
The surrounding forests consist of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, red cedar, poplar, quaking aspen, hemlock, paper birch and western larch. Local animal species include white-tailed deer, elk, gray wolves, moose, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, black bears, grizzly bear, coyotes, mountain goat, cougar and bobcats, along with bald eagles, wild turkeys, osprey, owls, hummingbirds, hawks, woodpeckers, ducks, and the mountain bluebird. The lake is a home for several species of migratory water fowl.
History
Lake Pend Oreille was glacially formed during the ice age.
The public source identifies “Lake Pend Oreille” as lake in Kootenai and Bonner counties in Idaho, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lake, Pend and Oreille.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lake Pend Oreille”, the useful work is to connect “lake in Kootenai and Bonner counties in Idaho, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1632195. VIAF identifies the subject as 136106781. The Library of Congress control number is n85135002. Authority coordinates are 48.167, -116.333. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lake Pend Oreille” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.