Lake Lake Cahuila

Type: Concept

As of November 2026, Lake Lake Cahuila has been mentioned in one podcast episode on Stuff You Should Know (Nov 2025). Presented as a much larger prehistoric lake in the same basin, illustrating the region’s cyclical lake/sea history.

Lake Cahuilla was a prehistoric lake in California and northern Mexico. Located in the Coachella and Imperial valleys, it covered surface areas of 5,700 km2 (2,200 mi2) to a height of 12 m (39 ft) above sea level during the Holocene. During earlier stages of the Pleistocene, the lake reached even higher elevations, up to 31–52 m (102–171 ft) above sea level. During the Holocene most of the water came from the Colorado River with little contribution from local runoff; in the Pleistocene local run