Tulare Lake

Tulare Lake
A group of unidentified men and a dog camping at the shores of Tulare Lake, 1880
Tulare Lake
Location	San Joaquin Valley Kings County, California
Coordinates	36°3′0″N 119°47′17″W / 36.05000°N 119.78806°W / 36.05000; -119.78806
Type	dry lake
Primary inflows	Kaweah River Kern River Kings River Tule River White River
Primary outflows	Evaporation, historically underground seepage to San Joaquin River, occasional flow to Suisun Bay[1]
Basin countries	United States
Max. length	dry bed 81 mi (130 km)
Surface area	dry bed 690 sq mi (1,780 km2)
Average depth	dry
Water volume	6.5 million acre-feet (8.0 km3) at capacity
Surface elevation	187 ft (57 m) 203 ft (62 m) 210 ft (64 m) drains into Fresno Slough
Settlements	Hanford, CA Corcoran, CA Alpaugh, CA
References	U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Tulare Lake

Tulare Lake (/tʊˈlɛəri/ ^ⓘ) or Tache Lake (Yokuts: Pah-áh-su, Pah-áh-sē) is a freshwater lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. Historically, Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River.^[2] For thousands of years, from the Paleolithic onward, Tulare Lake was a uniquely rich area, which supported perhaps the largest population of Native Americans north of present-day Mexico.^[3]

In the second half of the 19th century, Tulare Lake was dried up by diverting its tributary rivers for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses. In modern times, it is usually a dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes. The lake reappears during unusually high levels of rainfall or snow melt as it did in 1942, 1969, 1983, 1997, 1998, and 2023.