Top 10 Largest Lakes in world
James Austin 1. Caspian Sea
78,200 km3 – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Turkmenistan
he Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world’s largest lake or a full-fledged sea.It is in an endorheic basin (it has no outflows) located between Europe and Asia.[4] It is bounded to the northeast by Kazakhstan, to the northwest by Russia, to the west by Azerbaijan, to the south by Iran, and to the southeast by Turkmenistan.
2. Baikal (Ozero Baykal)
23,600 km3 – Russian Federation
Lake Baikal (Russian: о́зеро Байка́л, tr. Ozero Baykal; IPA: [ˈozʲɪrə bɐjˈkɑl]; Buryat: Байгал нуур, Mongolian: Байгал нуур, Baygal nuur, etymologically meaning, in Mongolian, “the Nature Lake” is a rift lake in Russia, located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast.
3. Tanganyika
19,000 km3 – Burundi, Congo (Democratic Republic), Tanzania, Zambia
Tanganyika was a sovereign state that existed from 1961 until 1964. It was situated between the Indian Ocean and the African Great Lakes of Lake Victoria, Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika. It gained independence from the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth realm on 9 December 1961, becoming a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations exactly a year later, on 9 December 1962. From 1962 to 1964 it was officially called the Republic of Tanganyika. On 26 April 1964, Tanganyika joined with the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, a new state that changed its name to the United Republic of Tanzania within a year.
4. Superior
12,100 km3 – Canada, United States of America
Lake Superior (French: Lac Supérieur) is the largest of the Great Lakes of North America. The lake is shared by the province of Ontario to the north in Canada, the states of Minnesota to the west, Wisconsin and Michigan to the south in the United States. It is generally considered the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. It is the world’s third-largest freshwater lake by volume and the largest by volume in North America.
5. Malawi (Nyasa, Niassa)
7,775 km3 – Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania
Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the ninth largest lake in the world and the third largest and second deepest lake in Africa. It is home to more species of fish than any other lake, including about 1000 species of cichlids. The Mozambique portion of the lake was officially declared a reserve by the Government of Mozambique on June 10, 2011,and in Malawi a portion of the lake is included in the Lake Malawi National Park.
6. Michigan
4,920 km3 – United States of America
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U.S. and Canada. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron (and is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of West Virginia). To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the wide Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are technically a single lake. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U.S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The word “Michigan” originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning “great water”.In earlier maps of the region, the name Lake Illinois has been found in place of “Michigan”.
7. Huron
3,540 km3 – Canada, United States of America
Lake Huron (French: Lac Huron) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as its westerly counterpart, to which it is connected by the 5-mile-wide (8.0 km), 20-fathom-deep (120 ft; 37 m) Straits of Mackinac. It is shared on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States. The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the Huron people inhabiting the region. The huronian glaciation was named due to evidence collected from Lake Huron region. The northern parts of the lake include the North Channel and Georgian Bay. The main inlet is the St. Marys River and the main outlet is the St. Clair.
8. Victoria
2,760 km3 – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
Lake Victoria (Nam Lolwe in Luo; Nalubaale in Luganda; Nyanza in Kinyarwanda and some Bantu languages) is one of the African Great Lakes. The lake was named after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, the first Briton to document it. Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River.
With a surface area of 68,800 km2 (26,600 sq mi),Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by area and the largest tropical lake in the world.Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest fresh water lake by surface area, after Lake Superior in North America.In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world’s ninth largest continental lake, containing about 2,750 cubic kilometres (2.23×109 acre·ft) of water.
9. Great Bear Lake
2,292 km3 – Canada
The Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely in Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron straddling the Canada-US border are larger), the fourth largest in North America, and the eighth largest in the world. The lake is in the Northwest Territories, on the Arctic Circle between 65 and 67 degrees of northern latitude and between 118 and 123 degrees western longitude, 156 m (512 ft) above sea level.
10. Great Slave
2,088 km3 – Canada
The Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (after Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at 614 metres (336 fathoms; 2,014 ),and the tenth-largest lake in the world. It is 469 km (291 mi) long and 20 to 203 km (12 to 126 mi) wide. It covers an area of 27,200 km2 (10,502 sq mi) in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from 1,070 km3 (260 cu mi) to 1,580 km3 (380 cu mi) and up to 2,088 km3 (501 cu mi) making it the 10th or 12th largest.
