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What's a wetland?

What do you think of as a wetland? A swamp or a lake? What about a rice paddy, or a water-storage constructed for irrigation or hydro-electricity generation?
The following list is the beginning of an A to Z of environments that can be regarded as wetlands:

• Aquaculture ponds, artificial lakes.
• Billabongs, bogs.
• Clay pans, coastal swamps, creeks, canals.
• Dams.
• Estuaries, ephemeral lakes, evaporation basins.
• Farm dams, fens, floodplains.
• Lakes, lagoons.
• Mangroves, marshes, maars, mound springs, mudflats.
• Oases, ornamental ponds.
• Peatlands, ponds.
• Rivers, reservoirs.
• Salt pans, sedgelands, sewage ponds, springs, stormwater retention basins.
• Waterways.

There are a number of negative terms that are sometimes used to label wetlands
e.g. mosquito breeding ground, smelly backwater or an obstacle to travel.