Lake Ellesmere

Lake Ellesmere, coastal lagoon, eastern South Island, New Zealand, just west of Banks Peninsula. It measures 14 by 8 miles (23 by 13 km) and is 70 square miles (180 square km) in area. Receiving runoff from a 745-square-mile (1,930-square-kilometre) basin through several streams, principal of which is the Selwyn (entering through a delta from the north), Lake Ellesmere is brackish and is no deeper than 7 feet (2 m). It is isolated from the Pacific by the Kaitorete Spit, a gravel formation created by materials eroded from the Canterbury Plain and carried north by shore currents. There is no natural channel through the spit, but, to prevent rising waters from inundating market-gardening areas on reclaimed sections of the swampy shore, an opening has been dug at Taumutu in the southwest. The lake is host to great flocks of waterfowl. Its Maori name, Waihora, means “wide waters.”