Lake Balkhash is 1.08× the size of Beijing

Lake Balkhash (lake) covers about 17,600 km² (6,790 mi²) and Beijing (municipality) about 16,300 km² (6,270 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Balkhash outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

17,600km²Lake Balkhash
16,300km²Beijing

100 km

Lake Balkhash
Beijing

What fits

Beijing is 92% of the size of Lake Balkhash.
Lake Balkhash is larger by 1,340 km² (519 mi²), which is 8.3% of the area of Beijing.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Balkhash is about 0.57, Beijing about 0.53.

How they differ

Their centres are about 3,340 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Lake Balkhash at 46°N is drawn about 2.1× too large and Beijing at 40°N about 1.7×, so the map shows Lake Balkhash as 1.32× the size of Beijing instead of 1.08×.
Together Lake Balkhash and Beijing cover 33,800 km², close to the size of Moldova (33,200 km², 1.9% smaller).
The gap between them, 1,340 km², is about the size of Comoros (1,670 km²).
Lake Balkhash's centre is 6.1° of latitude, about 680 km, farther north than Beijing's.
Lake Balkhash is a lake and ranks 15th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Beijing is a municipality of China; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
Laid out flat, Lake Balkhash stretches about 211 km north to south and 448 km east to west; Beijing about 178 km by 175 km.
Poured over Beijing, the 106 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Balkhash would stand 6.5 m deep.
Our measured 17,600 km² is 3.3% below Wikidata’s published figure of 18,200 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	Lake Balkhash	1.08×
Farther north	Lake Balkhash	6.1° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Balkhash	2.1× against 1.7×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Balkhash	Beijing
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.57×	0.53×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.07×	0.07×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.05×	0.05×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.05×	0.04×
France 548,000 km²	0.03×	0.03×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 482	1 in 521
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 537	1 in 581
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 965	1 in 1,045

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

Side by side

	Lake Balkhash	Beijing
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	MunicipalityChina
Area, measured	17,600 km²6,790 mi²	16,300 km²6,270 mi²
Area, published	18,200 km²Wikidata	16,400 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	15th of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	25 mWikidata	–
Volume	106 km³	–
Latitude range	45°N to 47°N	39°N to 41°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 Kazakhstan contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Balkhash. 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 Lake Balkhash

Similar in size to Beijing

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