List the States by the largest natural lake that lies within its borders
To be on this list, the lake must be natural. Large western lakes like Lake Powell, and Lake Sakakawea are not counted as they are artificial lakes.
The Area field is not the area of the lake, but rather the area of the lake within the borders of the state in cases where the lake is shared by multiple states. In some cases this was a rough estimate using Q. Those cases are marked with double asterisks
Some states completely lack natural lakes. These states are not included
areas marked with an asterisk are natural lakes that have been modified by dams. I have been unable to identify the original area of many of these lakes.
Some of these were easy to pull together. Some were not. After identifying Sabine Lake and Lake Champlain as the clear largest lakes in their states, I tried to figure out the percentage in each state. This was more or less impossible without GIS software. The guess for Champlain is fairly dubious, to say the least. I also had serious difficulty in finding the largest natural lake in Nebraska and South Carolina both. The lake for South Carolina comes from a Reddit post, far from the best source, but the only one I could find. The lake for Nebraska comes from an ancient wikipedia list of lakes in Nebraska, it is not clear if the value for Crescent Lake there is the added size of all the lakes in the Wildlife Management Area or one lake in particular. Crescent Lake does look like the largest lake in the sandhills, so if the value is wrong the only real competition would be an oxbow lake somewhere. There are a few karst natural ponds in extreme southern Georgia, I could not find any names