Lake Mattamuskeet

Lake Mattamuskeet
Lake Mattamuskeet Show map of North Carolina Lake Mattamuskeet Show map of the United States
Location	Hyde County, North Carolina, United States
Coordinates	35°29′55″N 76°11′20″W / 35.4987°N 76.1890°W / 35.4987; -76.1890
Basin countries	United States
Max. length	18 mi (29 km)
Max. width	7 mi (11 km)
Average depth	2–3 ft (0.61–0.91 m)

Lake Mattamuskeet is the largest natural lake in North Carolina. It is a shallow coastal lake, averaging 2–3 ft (0.61–0.91 m) feet in depth, and stretches 18 miles (29 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide. Lake Mattamuskeet lies on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula.

Lake Mattamuskeet is the location of Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge as well as surrounding public and private lands in eastern North Carolina are a major wintering site for waterfowl including ducks like northern pintail and green-wing teal, geese like Canada geese and tundra swans.

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  Forster's tern fishing on Lake Mattamuskeet
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  Swamp sparrow at Lake Mattamuskeet

New Holland^[1] is a community in Hyde County, North Carolina, located along the southern shore of Lake Mattamuskeet. Between 1911 and 1934, three private investment companies partnered with the public Mattamuskeet Drainage District to build the world's largest capacity pumping plant and dredge 130 miles (210 km) of large navigable canals to drain 50,000-acre (200 km²) Lake Mattamuskeet for residential, commercial, and agricultural development. The lake drainage project also gave badly needed drainage relief to about 550 farmers around the lake whose farms drained by gravity into the huge lakebed. The investors created a community within the reclaimed lakebed and named it "New Holland," after similar land reclamation projects in the Netherlands. The drainage project ended when the third private owner sold the lake property to the United States government in 1934 to allow the creation of a migratory bird refuge. Today, Lake Mattamuskeet and the old town site of New Holland are on Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. The community on the south central side of Lake Mattamuskeet is still called "New Holland Community."

• The Mattamuskeet Foundation, Inc. - History of Lake Mattamuskeet
• The Mattamuskeet Foundation, Inc. - Wildlife of Lake Mattamuskeet
• Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge - North Carolina - FWS
• Lake Mattamuskeet, New Holland and Hyde County on the Open Library