Which is the largest freshwater lake in India?

Lakes are classified by the salinity of the water they hold. A freshwater lake carries a low salt content and is fed and drained mainly by rivers, while a saline lake accumulates salts through evaporation with no outlet, and a lagoon is a shallow, brackish-water body separated from the sea by a sandbar or barrier. This freshwater/saline/brackish distinction, not raw surface area alone, is what "largest freshwater lake" actually asks for.

Wular Lake lies in Bandipora district, Jammu & Kashmir, and is fed by the Jhelum river; it formed through tectonic subsidence in the Jhelum valley. Government records - the CAG's 2025 lake-audit report and India's Ramsar wetland submission - identify it as India's largest freshwater lake, with a designated area of about 18,900 hectares (roughly 189 sq km) that expands considerably during the flood season.

Checking the other options against this freshwater criterion:

• Chilka Lake (Odisha): a brackish-water lagoon opening into the Bay of Bengal; despite covering a larger area than Wular, its brackish composition places it outside the freshwater-lake category, and it is instead officially recorded as India's largest coastal lagoon.

• Dal Lake (Srinagar): also a freshwater lake fed by the Jhelum river system, but its area is only about 18 sq km, far smaller than Wular's extent.

• Lonar Lake (Buldhana, Maharashtra): formed inside a meteorite-impact crater roughly 50,000 years ago; its water is saline and alkaline, and its area is a small fraction of Wular's.

Only Wular Lake satisfies both conditions in the question - freshwater composition and the largest extent among such lakes - making it the correct answer.