Lake Pontchartrain

Lake Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of 12to. Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from west to east and from south to north.In descending order of area, the lake is located in parts of six Louisiana parishes: St. Tammany, Orleans, Jefferson, St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and Tangipahoa. The water boundaries were defined in 1979 (see list of parishes in Louisiana).The lake is also home to the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest straight bridge over water in the world.NamesakeLake Pontchartrain is named for Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain. He was the French Minister of the Marine, Chancellor, and Controller-General of Finances during the reign of France's "Sun King", Louis XIV, for whom the colony of La Louisiane was named.