Hainan is 1.03× the size of Lake Tanganyika

Hainan (province) covers about 33,800 km² (13,100 mi²) and Lake Tanganyika (lake) about 32,800 km² (12,600 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Tanganyika outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

33,800km²Hainan
32,800km²Lake Tanganyika

50 km

Hainan
Lake Tanganyika

What fits

Lake Tanganyika is 97% of the size of Hainan.
Hainan is larger by 1,090 km² (419 mi²), which is 3.3% of the area of Lake Tanganyika.
Measured in Belgiums: Hainan is about 1.10, Lake Tanganyika about 1.07.

How they differ

Their centres are about 9,180 km apart.
Together Hainan and Lake Tanganyika cover 66,600 km², close to the size of Sri Lanka (66,300 km², 0.5% smaller).
The gap between them, 1,090 km², is about the size of São Tomé and Príncipe (1,040 km²).
Hainan's centre is 25.4° of latitude, about 2,820 km, farther north than Lake Tanganyika's.
Hainan is a province of China; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
Lake Tanganyika is a lake and ranks 6th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Hainan stretches about 222 km north to south and 254 km east to west; Lake Tanganyika about 608 km by 238 km.
Poured over Hainan, the 18,900 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Tanganyika would stand 559 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 32,900 km² agrees with our measured 32,800 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Hainan	1.03×
Farther north	Hainan	25.4° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Hainan	1.1× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Hainan	Lake Tanganyika
Belgium 30,700 km²	1.10×	1.07×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.14×	0.13×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.09×	0.09×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.09×	0.09×
France 548,000 km²	0.06×	0.06×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 250	1 in 259
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 279	1 in 288
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 502	1 in 518

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

Side by side

	Hainan	Lake Tanganyika
Is a	ProvinceChina	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	33,800 km²13,100 mi²	32,800 km²12,600 mi²
Area, published	33,900 km²Wikidata	32,900 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	6th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	1,433 mWikidata
Volume	–	18,900 km³
Latitude range	18°N to 20°N	9°S to 3°S
On the shore	–	4 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 Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Burundi contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Tanganyika. 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 Hainan

Similar in size to Lake Tanganyika

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