Lake, river, brook: what is the difference?
Follow one drop of water from the mountain to the sea. Eight kinds of water body, each with the official definition — and a real Quebec example.
Follow the water
From left to right, the drawing follows one drop: down the mountain in a brook, into a lake, through a rapid, along a river, held behind a dam, then out into the river that reaches the sea.
⚠ Careful: the name does not always tell the truth. The Commission de toponymie gives the example itself — the Saguenay river really is a river, but “rivière d’Aulnage” is actually a brook. The word at the start of a place name is called the generic, and it can mislead.
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Definitions quoted word for word from the List of entity types and their definitions — Commission de toponymie du Québec · What is a generic? — Commission de toponymie du Québec
For the teacher
- One thing separates a fleuve from a rivière, and only one: a fleuve ends in the sea. In Quebec that is the St. Lawrence — the rest are rivers.
- The name lies sometimes, and the Commission says so itself. “Rivière d’Aulnage” is actually a brook. Ask the class what else might carry a name that does not fit.
- A reservoir is the only one on the board that humans decide the level of. It is a good place to talk about dams and electricity.
- The counts come from our own map — 2,774 access points we list, not every lake in Quebec. The gap is enormous, and that gap is itself worth a question.
⚠ Careful: the name does not always tell the truth. The Commission de toponymie gives the example itself — the Saguenay river really is a river, but “rivière d’Aulnage” is actually a brook. The word at the start of a place name is called the generic, and it can mislead.