Crater Lake

For the curious reader

History, landscape and context.

Crater Lake National Park is a national park of the United States located in southern Oregon. Established in 1902, Crater Lake is the fifth-oldest national park in the United States and the only national park in Oregon. The park protects the flanks and caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of Mount Mazama, a destroyed volcano, and the surrounding hills and forests. The lake is 1,949 feet (594 m) deep at its deepest point, which makes it the deepest lake in the United States, the second-deepest in North America and the tenth-deepest in the world. Crater Lake is often referred to as the seventh-deepest lake in the world, but this former listing excludes the approximately 3,000-foot (910 m) depth of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, which resides under nearly 13,000 feet (4,000 m) of ice, and the recent report of a 2,740-foot (840 m) maximum depth for Lake O'Higgins/San Martin, located on the border of Chile and Argentina.

Abridged background from Crater Lake National Park, by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and shortened; this adapted background remains under the same licence. Retrieved 23 September 2026. Source revision.