Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes — but that’s actually an understatement. In fact, state cartographers have identified 28,176 different lakes, ponds and wetlands around the Gopher State (though 6,572 are so small they don’t have recorded names). There’s also 34,167 miles of rivers and streams, a figure that rises to 117,432 miles if one counts drainage ditches and intermittent streams.

The Pioneer Press has mapped every single one. Here are 10 maps of Minnesota’s abundant water:

1. EVERY LAKE IN MINNESOTA

This doesn’t count the Minnesota portion of Lake Superior, obviously.

2. EVERY RIVER IN MINNESOTA

3. EVERY LAKE AND RIVER IN MINNESOTA

4. EVERY TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT LAKE, RIVER, DITCH, STREAM & POND IN MINNESOTA

Many of Minnesota’s “rivers” only run part of the year, or are actually artificial drainage ditches. Map #3 excluded these, but Map #4 adds them in.

4A. COMPARE THE TWO

5. MINNESOTA’S LAKE-IEST COUNTIES

Lake County, Minnesota is only 7.97 percent lake — good for 19th place. (This analysis of lake area does not include Minnesota’s portion of Lake Superior.)

6. MINNESOTA’S CONTINENTAL DIVIDES

Minnesota is located at the nexus of three massive watersheds, separated by continental divides. One, the Laurentian Divide, enters western Minnesota near the middle of the state, cuts north and then runs east to the Canadian Border. All rivers north of that line flow ultimately toward Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. Rivers south of that line flow one of two places. Most of the state drains into the Mississippi River and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico, but the northeastern part of the state drains into Lake Superior and, through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, into the Atlantic Ocean. The line separating these two watersheds is the St. Lawrence River Divide.

7. HOW POLLUTED ARE MINNESOTA’S RIVERS AND LAKES?

Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency monitors thousands of lakes and rivers around the state for whether pollution is impairing their ability to support aquatic life and aquatic recreation. This is a map showing which rivers and lakes passed muster in 2015.

8. WHERE ARE MINNESOTA’S POLLUTED STREAMS CONCENTRATED?

This map breaks the state down into hexes and calculates the ratio of polluted to clean streams in each hex. It shows that the southern and western parts of the state have more impaired streams and rivers, while the northeast is cleaner.

9. WHERE ARE MINNESOTA’S POLLUTED LAKES CONCENTRATED?

Another way to track the concentration of polluted water is by watershed. This map shows “subbasins” — areas where rivers all flow to the same place — by their concentration of polluted lakes.

10. INTERACTIVE MAP OF MINNESOTA’S POLLUTED LAKES

Zoom in to see more lakes! Click on a lake for more details.

Data for all of these maps is available online at the Minnesota Geospatial Commons.

You can order prints of these maps here. To license one for publication, please fill out the request form at TwinCities.com/photo-reprints.