Who Has More Lakes: Minnesota Or Wisconsin?

No stranger to rivalries - the Gopher State and the Badger State have long had friendly battles over things like politics and sports.  And while some of their differences are pretty established - like Wisconsin as the dairy state - some are left to disagreement.

One of those items that you would have thought was settled was who had the most number of lakes; I mean - after all - Minnesota is the "land of 10,000 lakes", isn't it?

New to the post - and perhaps a little eager to garner some attention and marketing for her employer, Wisconsin's Tourism Secretary Sara Meany recently made the claim on a television show that Wisconsin has more lakes than Minnesota.  Meany's claim is that Wisconsin has "15,000 freshwater lakes" - as opposed to Minnesota's infamous 10,000.

So is she right?  It depends on how you determine what is officially a lake.  Wisconsin lists 15,074 lakes as opposed to Minnesota's 11,482.  However, while Minnesota holds firm to a definiton that a lake is only a lake if it's larger than 10-acres, Wisconsin doesn't abide by that definition, and according to news sources "thousands are less than 10-acres".  Many of those bodies of water that Wisconsin considers a lake do't even have a name.  That same article points out that if you held Wisconsin to Minnesota's 10-acre minimum for a body of water to be considered a lake, Wisconsin would only clock in at 5,898.

So who wins?  Who knows.  My gut says that even Sara Meany doesn't believe her claim about Wisconsin's lake numbers.  But, she does win one for her state - because we're all talking about it.