Covering 12,383 acres (19 square miles), Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) is located on the western edge of the northern Great Plains, 50 miles east of the Rocky Mountains and 12 miles north of Great Falls, Montana. Despite its name, Benton Lake is actually a 5,000 acre shallow wetland created by glaciers thousands of years ago. The gently rolling terrain of the Refuge is dominated by native shortgrass prairie and surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. The main marsh on the Refuge has been subdivided into eight impoundments by a series of dikes and water control structures; this allows efficient water management and provides a diversity of habitat types.