Carter Lake, Iowa is uniquely located on the West Side of the Missouri River. It is a city surrounded on three sides by Omaha, Nebraska, and its fourth boundary is the Missouri River. The oxbow shaped lake is approximately 323 acres with the city being approximately 1,236 acres.

In 1853, Edmond Jefferies filed a claim on 30 acres of land, which today is known as Carter Lake, Iowa. During the next 14 years, the Missouri River slowly shifted its channel, enlarging Mr. Jefferies' original 30 acres into 78 acres.

In 1877, flooding and shifting of the Missouri River created an oxbow lake, originally called Cut-Off lake and later Lake Nakomis, and left about 2,000 acres belonging to the State of Iowa, bounded on three sides by the State of Nebraska.

After extensive litigation between Iowa and Nebraska, in 1892 the United States Supreme Court finally ruled that Carter Lake belonged to Iowa (145 U.S. 519).

In 1930, Carter Lake became an officially incorporated city in the State of Iowa and today the Missouri River has stabilized.

Today, Carter Lake continues to grow and thrive paradoxically, as a small Iowa community surrounded by Omaha, Nebraska.