List of lakes by volume
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - List of lakes by volume
OR:
List of lakes by volume on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

This article lists
lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
s with a water volume of more than 100 km3, ranked by volume. The volume of a lake is a difficult quantity to measure. Generally, the volume must be inferred from bathymetric data by integration. Lake volumes can also change dramatically over time and during the year, especially for salt lakes in arid climates. For these reasons, and because of changing research, information on lake volumes can vary considerably from source to source. The base data for this article are from ''The Water Encyclopedia'' (1990). Where volume data from more recent surveys or other authoritative sources have been used, that usage is referenced in the respective entry. The total volume of Earth's lakes is 199,000 km3.


The list

The volumes of the lakes below vary little by season. This list does not include reservoirs; if it did, six reservoirs would appear on the list:
Lake Kariba Lake Kariba is the world's largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume. It lies upstream from the Indian Ocean, along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Lake Kariba was filled between 1958 and 1963 following the completion of the K ...
at 26th, Bratsk Reservoir,
Lake Volta Lake Volta, the largest artificial reservoir in the world based on surface area, is contained behind the Akosombo Dam which generates a substantial amount of Ghana's electricity. It is completely within the country of Ghana and has a surface area ...
,
Lake Nasser Lake Nasser ( ar, بحيرة ناصر ', ) is a vast reservoir in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan. It is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. Before construction, Sudan was against the building of Lake Nasser because it would encr ...
, Manicouagan Reservoir, and Lake Guri. Estuaries and lagoons are not included either. Examples:
Lake Melville Lake Melville is an estuary of Hamilton Inlet (itself an extension of Groswater Bay) on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Comprising and stretching inland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, it forms part of the ...
(estuary) and
Lake Maracaibo Lake Maracaibo ( Spanish: Lago de Maracaibo; Anu: Coquivacoa) is a lagoon in northwestern Venezuela, the largest lake in South America and one of the oldest on Earth, formed 36 million years ago in the Andes Mountains. The fault in the northern se ...
(lagoon), comparable with Lagoa dos Patos. In 1960, the
Aral Sea The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic lake lying between Kazak ...
was the world's twelfth-largest known lake by volume, at . However, by 2007 it had shrunk to 10% of its original volume and was divided into three lakes, none of which are large enough to appear on this list.


By continent

*
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
:
Lake Tanganyika Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. T ...
*
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
: Lake Vostok *
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
:
Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
*
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
:
Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains ...
*
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
:
Lake Ladoga Lake Ladoga (; rus, Ла́дожское о́зеро, r=Ladozhskoye ozero, p=ˈladəʂskəjə ˈozʲɪrə or rus, Ла́дога, r=Ladoga, p=ˈladəɡə, fi, Laatokka arlier in Finnish ''Nevajärvi'' ; vep, Ladog, Ladoganjärv) is a fresh ...
*
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
:
Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...
*
Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
: Lake Te Anau *
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...
: Lake Titicaca


See also

* List of lakes by depth * List of lakes by area * List of largest lakes of Europe


Notes and references

;Notes ;References {{reflist, 2 *
Lakes A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...