Belgium is 1.19× the size of Lake Erie

Belgium (country) covers about 30,700 km² (11,800 mi²) and Lake Erie (lake) about 25,700 km² (9,940 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Erie outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

30,700km²Belgium
25,700km²Lake Erie

100 km

Belgium
Lake Erie

What fits

Lake Erie is 84% of the size of Belgium.
Belgium is larger by 4,930 km² (1,900 mi²), which is 19% of the area of Lake Erie.
Measured in Switzerlands: Belgium is about 0.74, Lake Erie about 0.62.

How they differ

Their centres are about 6,280 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Belgium at 51°N is drawn about 2.5× too large and Lake Erie at 42°N about 1.8×, so the map shows Belgium as 1.63× the size of Lake Erie instead of 1.19×.
Together Belgium and Lake Erie cover 56,400 km², close to the size of Togo (56,900 km², 0.8% bigger).
The gap between them, 4,930 km², is about the size of Trinidad and Tobago (5,120 km²).
Belgium's centre is 8.5° of latitude, about 940 km, farther north than Lake Erie's.
Belgium ranks 140th of 212 countries by area.
Lake Erie is a lake and ranks 11th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Belgium stretches about 222 km north to south and 271 km east to west; Lake Erie about 192 km by 378 km.
Poured over Belgium, the 483 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Erie would stand 16 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 25,700 km² agrees with our measured 25,700 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Belgium	1.19×
Farther north	Belgium	8.5° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Belgium	2.5× against 1.8×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Belgium	Lake Erie
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.13×	0.11×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.09×	0.07×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.08×	0.07×
France 548,000 km²	0.06×	0.05×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 276	1 in 329
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 308	1 in 367
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 554	1 in 660

Each figure is the place's area divided by the yardstick's.

Side by side

	Belgium	Lake Erie
Is a	CountryEurope	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	30,700 km²11,800 mi²	25,700 km²9,940 mi²
Area, published	30,700 km²Wikidata	25,700 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	140th of 212countries	11th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	65 mWikidata
Volume	–	483 km³
Latitude range	49°N to 51°N	41°N to 43°N
On the shore	–	2 on the shore

Published figures: Wikidata (CC0). A lake or a sea has no legal boundary: the measured area is that of Natural Earth’s outline, and it is shown beside the published one.

Natural Earth’s outlines of the United States and Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Erie. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.

Similar in size to Belgium

Similar in size to Lake Erie

More comparisons

Sources and method

Outlines: Lakes and seas: Natural Earth 1:10m physical vectors (public domain), kept only where the measured area is within 10% of the published one. Countries and regions: Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 0 and Admin 1, public domain.
Boundary: De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth. A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own; the outline is a cartographic one.
Area: Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The published figure comes from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11, and is shown beside the measured one.
Drawing: Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and the two can be laid over each other.
Data built: 2026-11-11

Full method