Great Bear Lake is 1.01× the size of Belgium

Great Bear Lake (lake) covers about 30,900 km² (11,900 mi²) and Belgium (country) about 30,700 km² (11,800 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Great Bear Lake outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

30,900km²Great Bear Lake
30,700km²Belgium

100 km

Great Bear Lake
Belgium

What fits

Belgium is 99% of the size of Great Bear Lake.
Great Bear Lake is larger by 193 km² (74.6 mi²), which is 0.6% of the area of Belgium.
Measured in Switzerlands: Great Bear Lake is about 0.74, Belgium about 0.74.

How they differ

Their centres are about 6,250 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Great Bear Lake at 66°N is drawn about 6.1× too large and Belgium at 51°N about 2.5×, so the map shows Great Bear Lake as 2.45× the size of Belgium instead of 1.01×.
Together Great Bear Lake and Belgium cover 61,500 km², close to the size of Latvia (64,600 km², 4.9% bigger).
Great Bear Lake's centre is 15.4° of latitude, about 1,710 km, farther north than Belgium's.
Great Bear Lake is a lake and ranks 8th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Belgium ranks 140th of 212 countries by area.
Laid out flat, Great Bear Lake stretches about 249 km north to south and 342 km east to west; Belgium about 222 km by 271 km.
Poured over Belgium, the 2,236 km³ that Wikidata records for Great Bear Lake would stand 73 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 31,200 km² agrees with our measured 30,900 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Great Bear Lake	1.01×
Farther north	Great Bear Lake	15.4° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Great Bear Lake	6.1× against 2.5×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Great Bear Lake	Belgium
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.13×	0.13×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.09×	0.09×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.08×	0.08×
France 548,000 km²	0.06×	0.06×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 275	1 in 276
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 306	1 in 308
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 550	1 in 554

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

Side by side

	Great Bear Lake	Belgium
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	CountryEurope
Area, measured	30,900 km²11,900 mi²	30,700 km²11,800 mi²
Area, published	31,200 km²Wikidata	30,700 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	8th of 104lakes	140th of 212countries
Greatest depth	446 mWikidata	–
Volume	2,236 km³	–
Latitude range	65°N to 67°N	49°N to 51°N
On the shore	1 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 Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Great Bear Lake. 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 Great Bear Lake

Similar in size to Belgium

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