Lake Tacoma was a former freshwater lake in Washington that filled the basin of the Puyallup River and the Green River, now the Duwamish River, after the Vashon Glacier receded northward into Commencement Bay. Earlier in this geologic sequence, the lake was known as Lake Puyallup. The bluff later chosen as the site of Tacoma marked the point where Lake Puyallup ended and Lake Tacoma began, tying the city's later location to a much older glacial landscape.