The usual answer is that there are 16 main lakes in the Lake District National Park, plus many smaller tarns and reservoirs.

Official lake counts

• Most tourism and mapping sources say the Lake District has 16 principal lakes or large bodies of water, such as Windermere, Ullswater and Derwentwater.

• Strictly by name, only Bassenthwaite is called a “lake”; the others are termed “waters” or “meres,” but they are all counted as lakes in the common total of 16.

Wider definitions

• If you include all named lakes, tarns and reservoirs, there are over 80 bodies of water within the Lake District.

• Some authorities also mention around 197 tarns in Cumbria alone, which shows how much the count grows once every small mountain pool is included.