Rapids

What is the difference between a "Lake, Ocean, River, Stream, Pond, Creek, and Rapids"?

Public Comments

1. Enter the terms in "search" and Merriam-Webster will tell you the difference. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lake
2. While any dictionary will give you a definition of the above aquatic features, you could go deeper. This link has most of them: http://www.geocities.com/monte7dco/list_of_all_the_land_forms_and_definitions.htm Basically a lake is a large body of water surrounded by land, whereas a pond is usually described as a smaller body of water surrounded by land. Interestly there is quite a bit of discussion as to what is a pond and what is a lake. This link explains it quite well - http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/bb/documents/bb-49.pdf Other arguments state that ponds are generally constructed and lakes are natural but I would not use this argument because there are several man-made lakes (essentially reservoirs) from damming rivers. This brings us to rivers, creeks and streams. Streams are generally tributaries of rivers - that is they are closer to the source of the water, whether it be snowmelt from the mountains or springs. They tend to be much smaller than rivers. Rivers carry a higher volume of water. Creeks are tricky - especially as they are not even a feature in some countries; the UK for instance has primarily streams and rivers - though Brook might be an equivalent term - so it is a matter of classification and semantics. For simplicity's sake, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River it states that: "Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill; there is no general rule that defines what can be called a river. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; one example is Burn in Scotland and North-east England. Sometimes a river is said to be larger than a creek,[1] but this is not always the case, due to vagueness in the language.[2]" So larger than a stream and smaller than a river - probably. Rapids are a part of a river, generally shallow, where the currents move swiftly over rocks. Oceans are the largest bodies of salt water covering 3/4 of the earth's surface. These last two were easy but as for the first...there actually is no official answer. A similar question was asked and answered here: http://gallery.usgs.gov/audios/127 So there you have it!
3. Lake: A lake is surrounded by land. Ocean: An ocean takes up a large space. Oceans are deep and are salty. River: It's a downhill path where freshwater flows through. Stream: Something like a river. Except for that it's smaller. Pond: A man-made feature. A pond is like a lake, but smaller. Creek: A small stream. Rapids:A fast-flowing part of the river.