Lake Winnipesaukee

Lake Winnipesaukee is the largest lake in New Hampshire. It sits in the Lakes Region, in Belknap and Carroll counties, at the foothills of the White Mountains. The lake is about 21 miles long and 1 to 9 miles wide. It covers 69 square miles, or 71 square miles when Paugus Bay is counted, and has a maximum depth of 180 feet. It contains at least 264 islands, has about 288 miles of shoreline and lies 504 feet above sea level. Only Lake Champlain and Moosehead Lake are larger in New England. The lake once drained southeast through what is now Alton Bay, but glacial debris blocked that path. It now drains west through Paugus Bay into the Winnipesaukee River, which joins the Pemigewasset River at Franklin to form the Merrimack River. The Lakeport Dam on the Winnipesaukee River in Lakeport regulates the outflow. Building that dam raised Paugus Bay, once a separate lake, to the level of Winnipesaukee. Shoreline towns include Meredith, Laconia, Gilford, Alton, Wolfeboro, Tuftonboro, Moultonborough and Center Harbor.

Public launches around the lake are run by the shoreline towns, the City of Laconia and state agencies. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department operates Downing's Landing in Alton. Other public sites include Weir Docks in Laconia, Glendale Docks and Ellacoya State Park in Gilford, and Back Bay Boat Landing in Wolfeboro. A lake-wide daytime speed limit of 45 miles per hour applies to boats.

The Winnipesaukee people, a subtribe of the Pennacook, lived and fished at a village called Acquadocton. That site is now The Weirs, named for the fishing weirs that colonists noted there.