Cyprus and Lake Albert are almost exactly the same size

Cyprus (country) covers about 5,400 km² (2,080 mi²) and Lake Albert (lake) about 5,380 km² (2,080 mi²). Their outlines are laid over each other below at one scale. The Lake Albert outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

5,400km²Cyprus
5,380km²Lake Albert

50 km

Cyprus
Lake Albert

What fits

Lake Albert is 100% of the size of Cyprus.
The measured areas differ by 14.5 km², less than half a percent: closer than the measurement itself is certain.
Measured in Belgiums: Cyprus is about 0.18, Lake Albert about 0.18.

How they differ

Their centres are about 3,710 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Cyprus at 35°N is drawn about 1.5× too large and Lake Albert at 2°N about 1.0×, so the map shows Cyprus as 1.49× the size of Lake Albert instead of 1.00×.
Together Cyprus and Lake Albert cover 10,800 km², close to the size of Kosovo (10,900 km², 1.3% bigger).
Cyprus's centre is 33.3° of latitude, about 3,700 km, farther north than Lake Albert's.
Cyprus ranks 170th of 212 countries by area.
Lake Albert is a lake and ranks 27th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Cyprus stretches about 63 km north to south and 166 km east to west; Lake Albert about 155 km by 121 km.
Poured over Cyprus, the 132 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Albert would stand 24 m deep.
Our measured 5,380 km² is 2.1% above Wikidata’s published figure of 5,270 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Cyprus	1.00×
Farther north	Cyprus	33.3° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Cyprus	1.5× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Cyprus	Lake Albert
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.18×	0.18×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
France 548,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
India 3,151,000 km²	1 in 584	1 in 586
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 1,570	1 in 1,575
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 1,751	1 in 1,756
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 3,147	1 in 3,156

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

Side by side

	Cyprus	Lake Albert
Is a	CountryAsia	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	5,400 km²2,080 mi²	5,380 km²2,080 mi²
Area, published	9,240 km²Wikidata	5,270 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	170th of 212countries	27th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	58 mWikidata
Volume	–	132 km³
Latitude range	35°N to 35°N	1°N to 2°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 Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Albert. 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 Cyprus

Similar in size to Lake Albert

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