Lakes
Major lakes, their volumes and their condition.
Once the fourth largest lake in the world, now largely gone. The Aral Sea is the most complete environmental collapse ever caused by water diversion, and the standing warning against irrig…
The deepest and oldest lake in the world, holding roughly a fifth of all unfrozen surface fresh water on Earth — more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.
- Maximum depth
- 1,642 m
- Volume
- approximately 23,600 km³
- Share of global unfrozen surface fresh water
- approximately 20%
- Age
- approximately 25 million years
The largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, and the largest of the North American Great Lakes, which together hold about a fifth of the world’s surface fresh water.
- Surface area
- 82,100 km²
- Volume
- approximately 12,100 km³
- Maximum depth
- 406 m
The largest tropical lake in the world and the source of the White Nile, shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
- Surface area
- 68,800 km²
- Volume
- approximately 2,750 km³
- Maximum depth
- 84 m — shallow for its area, making it sensitive to climate variation
The largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth. Saline and endorheic, it is technically a lake, and its legal classification as sea or lake has real consequences for resource rights among its five littoral states.
- Surface area
- approximately 371,000 km²
- Volume
- approximately 78,200 km³
- Salinity
- approximately 12 PSU — about a third of seawater
The largest lake in the British Isles by area and the source of around 40% of Northern Ireland’s drinking water. Severe cyanobacterial blooms since 2023 have made it the most prominent UK example of nutrient-driven eutrophication.
- Surface area
- 392 km²
- Mean depth
- 9 m
- Share of NI drinking water
- approximately 40%