page_title: Endorheic basin
section_title: North and Central America
hierarchical_section_title: Endorheic basin / List of major endorheic basins / North and Central America
context_page_description: An endorheic basin, also called an internal drainage system, is a drainage basin, or watershed, that does not flow to one of the Earth's major oceans. This is unlike normal basins that collect in rivers and flow to the ocean. Endorheic basins usually end in a saline lake or a salt flat. They can be found in all parts of the world, but usually in desert locations.
context_section_description: Lago de Atitlán, in the highlands of Guatemala;
  Bolsón de Mapimí, in northern Mexico
  Crater Lake in Oregon
  Devil's Lake (North Dakota)
  Devil's Lake (Wisconsin)
  The Great Basin, which covers much of Nevada and Utah, includes:
  The Black Rock Desert in Nevada, location of the Thrust2 and ThrustSSC landspeed record runs, and the annual home to the Burning Man festival
  Death Valley in California and Nevada, the lowest land point in the United States
  Groom Dry Lake in Nevada, location of the secret Area 51 base
  Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the largest terminal lake in the Western Hemisphere
  Salton Sea in California, a lake accidentally created in 1905 when irrigation canals ruptured, filling a desert endorheic basin and recreating an ancient saline sea
  Utah’s Sevier Lake
  Pyramid Lake in Nevada
  Mono Lake in California
  The Great Divide Basin in Wyoming, a small endorheic basin that straddles the Continental Divide.
  Guzmán Basin, in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States;
  Little Manitou Lake in Saskatchewan
  New Mexico has a number of desert endorheic basins including:
  The Tularosa Basin, a rift valley;
  Zuni Salt Lake, a maar;
  Rogers Lake, at Edwards Air Force Base in California
  Tulare Lake, an endorheic basin at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley fed by the Kings River, Tule River and Kaweah River; since the late 19th century the lake bed has been reclaimed and used as farmland, though it occasionally floods when rainfall is especially heavy
  The Valley of Mexico. In Pre-Columbian times, the Valley was substantially covered with five lakes, including Lake Texcoco, Lake Xochimilco, and Lake Chalco.
  Many small lakes and ponds in North Dakota and Manitoba are endorheic; some of them have salt encrustations along their shores.
caption: Great Salt Lake, Satellite photo (2003) after five years of drought
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