Free Watts Bar Lake Vector. SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF, GeoJSON, Shapefile, High-Res PNG.
Every Watts Bar Lake vector file you’ll ever need. Free. Public domain. Every reasonable format. Every reasonable color combination. No attribution required, no signup, no watermark, no paywall. Just the files.
The honest pitch
If you’ve searched for a Watts Bar Lake vector before, you’ve probably noticed Etsy is full of people selling these. Five bucks here, fifteen bucks there. The files are fine for what they are. The thing nobody mentions: every one of those listings is derived from public-domain map data that you, as a US taxpayer, technically already paid for. The outline of the lake isn’t somebody’s creative work. It’s just the shape of a real reservoir, traced from US Geological Survey hydrography that’s been free to download since the 1990s, just hidden away on a complicated government website in a format your Cricut doesn’t understand.
So here are the files. All of them. Every format and color combination we could think of. If this saves you the few bucks the Etsy sellers would’ve charged, the only thing we’d ask back is that you tell somebody. Share this page. Link to watts.bar from somewhere. It helps us out, and it means the next person Googling for a Watts Bar Lake vector lands on the free version too.
Quick downloads
Most people want one of these four. If your use case isn’t obvious from the names below, skip to "Pick by use case" or scroll further for every variant.
SVG
Vector for the web, modern design tools, Cricut.
Universal vector. Opens in Illustrator, Affinity, Inkscape, every print shop.
Pick by use case
Web designers & developers
SVG is what you want. The simplified version is ~10× smaller than the full file and renders identical at typical screen sizes. WebP, AVIF, and PNG are raster fallbacks if you need them; TopoJSON is for D3 / observable charts.
Print, illustration, and Adobe / Affinity / Inkscape
PDF is the universal vector format and opens cleanly in Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Inkscape, and every print shop. EPS is the legacy print format if a vendor specifically asks for it. The 8192 px PNG is more than enough for poster-size printing at 300 DPI.
Laser cutters, CNC, vinyl, Cricut, Silhouette
DXF is the standard for hardware: laser cutters, CNC routers, AutoCAD, Fusion 360. For Cricut and Silhouette vinyl cutters, use the silhouette SVG (solid black on transparent), which is the format their software expects. If the cutter’s software chokes on the full geometry, try the simplified SVG instead.
GIS & mapping
The full GIS bundle. Shapefile is the GIS lingua franca; GeoPackage is its modern replacement. KML/KMZ open in Google Earth. GeoJSON is the easiest format to script against. The geometry is the same in all of them.
Color and style variants
Every reasonable combination. Each row links to a vector (SVG plus PDF or EPS where it makes sense) and four PNG resolutions: 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192 pixels wide. The default filled teal uses watts.bar’s brand color. Silhouette is solid black on transparent. Outline is just the shoreline stroke. The background-filled variants (such as "black on white") have a solid colored rectangle behind the lake so you can drop them onto a layout without compositing.
A few facts about Watts Bar Lake
For anyone who landed here from a search and wants to put a sentence of context next to the outline they’re embedding: Watts Bar Lake is a 39,000-acre Tennessee Valley Authority reservoir on the Tennessee River. It’s formed by Watts Bar Dam at Tennessee River Mile 529.9 and stretches roughly 72 river miles upstream to Fort Loudoun Dam. The lake spans four East Tennessee counties (Roane, Meigs, Rhea, and Loudon) and touches the towns of Kingston, Rockwood, Spring City, Ten Mile, Decatur, and Loudon. Summer pool sits at 741 feet above sea level. Winter draw-down hovers near 735 feet.
The lake is part of the larger Tennessee Valley Authority reservoir system, alongside Fort Loudoun, Tellico, Chickamauga, and the rest of the chain. If you need vectors or maps for any of those, the same techniques used for this page apply (extract from OpenStreetMap, project through State Plane, render). We don’t host them yet, but we may eventually.
License
These files are released to the public domain under CC0 1.0. No attribution required. No restrictions on commercial use, modification, redistribution, or anything else. Paint it on a boat. Screen-print it on t-shirts and sell those t-shirts. Frame it on your wall. Embed it on your website. Laser-cut it into wooden coasters. Ship it as part of a software product. None of that requires asking us, crediting us, or paying us.
The underlying lake-outline geometry was extracted from OpenStreetMap relation 1376486, then projected through the Tennessee State Plane (Lambert Conformal Conic) so the lake’s east-west aspect ratio renders correctly. OpenStreetMap is a community-curated dataset built largely from public-domain US Geological Survey hydrography. If you republish the raw GeoJSON or Shapefile and want to be a good citizen, OSM asks for an "© OpenStreetMap contributors" credit (per the ODbL). For the rendered images and styled vectors above, no credit is legally required.
Frequently asked
Is this Watts Bar Lake vector really free?
Yes. Free, no attribution required, no signup, no watermark. The data is derived from OpenStreetMap, which itself is built from public-domain US Geological Survey hydrography. The rendered images and styled vectors are released to the public domain via CC0. Use them however you want.
Do I have to credit watts.bar?
No. Use the files however you want, no credit required. We’d still appreciate a link or share if you found this page useful, but it’s not legally required and we’re not tracking it.
Can I sell things made from this vector?
Yes. T-shirts, mugs, prints, coasters, custom maps, fine-art posters, anything. CC0 places no restrictions on commercial use. You don’t even have to mention us.
What file format do I need for a laser cutter or vinyl cutter?
DXF is the standard for laser cutters, CNC routers, and most CAD software. SVG works for Cricut and Silhouette vinyl cutters. The "silhouette" SVG (solid black on transparent) is what most cutters expect. If your software chokes on the full geometry, try the simplified SVG. It’s about 10× smaller and looks identical at typical cutting sizes.
What’s the difference between SVG, PDF, and EPS?
All three are vector formats. The geometry is identical in all of them. SVG is best for the web and modern design tools (Figma, Affinity, Inkscape, Illustrator). PDF is universal. Every print shop and every design app opens it. EPS is the legacy print and illustration format. Mostly useful if a vendor or older Illustrator workflow specifically asks for it. If you’re not sure, use PDF.
What’s the difference between the “simplified” SVG and the regular one?
The full SVG preserves every inch of shoreline detail and weighs ~253 KB. The simplified version reduces the geometry to about 8% of the points, weighs ~21 KB, and looks visually identical at any size you’d display on a screen. Use simplified for web. Use full for print.
Can I open these in Adobe Illustrator?
Yes. Open the .pdf or the .svg directly. Both come in clean as editable vector layers. Affinity Designer, Inkscape, Figma, and CorelDRAW all handle them too.
Can I open these in AutoCAD or Fusion 360?
Yes. Use the .dxf file. It’s the standard interchange format for CAD software, and it’s the format laser cutters and CNC routers want.
Why is the lake oriented this way?
The polygon is projected through Tennessee State Plane (Lambert Conformal Conic), which keeps the east-west aspect ratio of the lake correct for this latitude. If you used a raw lon/lat plot, the lake would look noticeably stretched horizontally because Watts Bar is at 35.6°N. State Plane is what most Tennessee GIS work uses.
Where exactly does the outline come from?
The polygon was extracted from OpenStreetMap relation 1376486 ("Watts Bar Lake", natural=water) using the Overpass API, converted to GeoJSON with osmtogeojson, projected with mapshaper, and styled and rasterized with rsvg-convert. OSM’s lake polygon is itself digitized from US Geological Survey hydrography. If you want the rawest possible source, the USGS National Hydrography Dataset has its own slightly different version of the same lake. It’s public domain.
What if I need a feature that isn’t here?
If we missed a color, format, or size you need, drop a note and we’ll add it. We don’t want anyone going back to Etsy because we forgot to ship a 4096-pixel transparent PNG.
Can I use this for a logo, band merch, or business?
Yes. CC0 means no restrictions of any kind. Trademark is a separate question (we don’t hold one on the lake outline; we don’t think anyone does), but for normal commercial use of the artwork itself, you’re free to do whatever.
Is there a Fort Loudoun Lake or Chickamauga Lake vector too?
Not yet. We may add the rest of the Tennessee Valley Authority chain (Fort Loudoun, Tellico, Chickamauga, Norris, Cherokee, Douglas, the rest) at some point. Same workflow applies. If you want one specifically, ask via the contact page.
How do I open a Shapefile?
QGIS opens it directly. So does ArcGIS, ArcMap, Mapbox Studio, GeoServer, and just about every other GIS tool. Unzip the .shp.zip first; the .shp, .shx, .dbf, and .prj files all need to live next to each other. If you’re scripting, GeoPandas in Python reads them in one line.
How do I open a KML or KMZ?
Drop it onto Google Earth, Google Maps (My Maps), Garmin BaseCamp, or any modern GIS tool. KMZ is just a zipped KML; both work the same way.