About how large is Lake Superior's surface area?

Lake Superior has a surface area of about 82,100 square kilometers.

That makes it the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and the largest of North America’s five Great Lakes. It borders Ontario in Canada and Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the United States. Its scale is often easier to visualize as roughly the size of Austria or South Carolina.

Superior is not the world’s largest lake overall: the Caspian Sea is larger, although it is saline and usually classified as a lake because it is an enclosed body of water. Another common trap is Lake Michigan–Huron, whose connected waters have a larger combined area, but the two are generally treated as separate lakes.

The lake holds about 12,100 cubic kilometers of water and reaches a maximum depth of roughly 406 meters. Water leaves Superior through the St. Marys River, passes through the Soo Locks, and continues into Lake Huron. Its huge volume also gives it a long water-retention time of about 191 years.