Where is the largest freshwater island in the world?

The Manitoulin Islands Archipelago is a transnational island archipelago of limestone-cored islands in northern Lake Huron, straddling the United States-Canadian border and forming one of the prominent features of the Niagara Escarpment.

The Ontario island of Manitoulin Island which is the largest island in the Manitoulin Archipelago is the largest freshwater island in the world, has a length of approximately 100 miles or 160 kilometers and an area of approximately 1,068 square miles or 2,766 square kilometers. Manitoulin Island is the 174th largest island of any type in the world.

Of the many other islands in the group, the Michigan island of Drummond Island and the Ontario islands of Saint Joseph Island and Blackburn Island are the economically most important Islands.

All the islands are underlain by dolomite and limestone of Silurian origin. Because of glacial erosion, many of the islands have extensive areas of smoothed, bare bedrock exposed at the surface.

The name Manitoulin is derived from an Algonquian Indian word for “spirit.” The islands, first visited by Jesuit missionaries about 1650, are now noted for fishing, lumbering, dairying, and mixed farming; the region is popular with vacationers and sportsmen. A highway and a railway line link the town of Little Current on Manitoulin Island, the archipelago's major population and political center, to the Ontario mainland.