Tulare Lake

Tulare Lake
Map of the Tulare Lake hydrologic region, including aqueducts and dry lake beds.
Location	San Joaquin Valley Kings County, California
Coordinates	36°3′0″N 119°47′17″W / 36.05000°N 119.78806°W / 36.05000; -119.78806Coordinates: 36°3′0″N 119°47′17″W / 36.05000°N 119.78806°W / 36.05000; -119.78806
Type	Flat
Primary inflows	Kaweah River Kern River Kings River Tule River White River
Primary outflows	Evaporation, historically underground seepage to San Joaquin River
Basin countries	United States
Max. length	dry bed 130 km (81 mi)
Surface area	dry bed 1,780 km2 (690 sq mi)
Average depth	dry
Surface elevation	56 m (184 ft)
References	U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Tulare Lake

Tulare Lake, named Laguna de Tache by the Spanish, is a freshwater dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. After Lake Cahuilla disappeared in the 17th century, Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River and the second-largest freshwater lake entirely in the United States (excluding the Great Lakes which share area with Canada), based upon surface area. A remnant of Pleistocene-era Lake Corcoran, Tulare Lake dried up after its tributary rivers were diverted for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses.

The lake was named for the tule rush (Schoenoplectus acutus) that lined the marshes and sloughs of its shores. The lake was part of a 13,670-square-mile (35,400 km²) partially endorheic basin, at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, where it received water from the Kern, Tule, and Kaweah Rivers, as well as from southern distributaries of the Kings. It was separated from the rest of the San Joaquin Valley by tectonic subsidence and alluvial fans extending out from Los Gatos Creek in the Coast Ranges and the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada. Above a threshold elevation of 207 to 210 feet, it overflowed into the San Joaquin River. This happened in 19 of 29 years from 1850 to 1878. No overflows occurred after 1878 due to increasing diversions of tributary waters for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses, and by 1899, the lake was dry except for residual wetlands and occasional floods.

Tulare Lake was the largest of several similar lakes in its lower basin. Most of the Kern River's flow first went into Kern Lake and Buena Vista Lake via the Kern River and Kern River Slough southwest and south of the site of Bakersfield. If they overflowed, it was through the Kern River channel northwest through tule marshland and Goose Lake, into Tulare Lake.