Name the Great Lakes.

The five Great Lakes are Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, often remembered with the mnemonic HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). The lakes are listed here in order of their flow from the upper to the lower lakes through the connecting straits, rivers, and falls.

Lake Superior is the westernmost, largest, deepest, and coldest of the five. It covers 31,700 square miles, holds about half the total water of the system, and reaches 1,332 feet at its deepest point. It borders Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario, and drains south through the St. Marys River and the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie to Lake Huron.

Lake Michigan is the third largest at 22,400 square miles, the only Great Lake entirely within the United States, bordering Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. It is the lake of Chicago and Milwaukee. Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are connected by the wide Straits of Mackinac and are technically a single hydrologic body, although treated as separate lakes by convention.

Lake Huron is the second largest at 23,000 square miles, bordering Michigan and Ontario. It contains Manitoulin Island, the largest island in any freshwater lake in the world. Lake Huron drains south through the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River to Lake Erie, passing between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Lake Erie is the fourth largest by surface area at 9,910 square miles, the shallowest at 210 feet maximum, and the warmest. It borders Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Ontario. Cities on Lake Erie include Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo, and Erie, Pennsylvania. Lake Erie suffered severe pollution in the twentieth century. The Cuyahoga River that empties into Lake Erie at Cleveland caught fire on June 22, 1969, helping spur the Clean Water Act of 1972. Lake Erie drains north through the Niagara River to Lake Ontario, dropping 167 feet over Niagara Falls.

Lake Ontario is the smallest and easternmost at 7,340 square miles. It borders New York and Ontario. Toronto sits on Lake Ontario's north shore. Lake Ontario drains east through the St. Lawrence River, which carries Great Lakes water 750 miles to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the North Atlantic. Total Great Lakes water flowing through the St. Lawrence amounts to about 240,000 cubic feet per second.

The system supports the largest freshwater shipping fleet in the world, with bulk carriers up to 1,000 feet long carrying iron ore, coal, grain, limestone, and other commodities.