Lake Balkhash is 1.04× the size of Hawaii

Lake Balkhash (lake) covers about 17,600 km² (6,790 mi²) and Hawaii (state) about 16,800 km² (6,510 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
16,800km²Hawaii

200 km

Lake Balkhash
Hawaii

What fits

Hawaii is 96% of the size of Lake Balkhash.
Lake Balkhash is larger by 747 km² (288 mi²), which is 4.4% of the area of Hawaii.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Balkhash is about 0.57, Hawaii about 0.55.

How they differ

Their centres are about 11,000 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Lake Balkhash at 46°N is drawn about 2.1× too large and Hawaii at 20°N about 1.1×, so the map shows Lake Balkhash as 1.93× the size of Hawaii instead of 1.04×.
Together Lake Balkhash and Hawaii cover 34,400 km², close to the size of Moldova (33,200 km², 3.6% smaller).
The gap between them, 747 km², is about the size of Dominica (730 km²).
Lake Balkhash's centre is 26.0° of latitude, about 2,900 km, farther north than Hawaii's.
Lake Balkhash is a lake and ranks 15th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Hawaii is a state of the United States; 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; Hawaii about 373 km by 563 km.
Poured over Hawaii, the 106 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Balkhash would stand 6.3 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	1.04×
Farther north	Lake Balkhash	26.0° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Balkhash	2.1× against 1.1×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Balkhash	Hawaii
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.57×	0.55×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.07×	0.07×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.05×	0.05×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.05×	0.05×
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 503
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 537	1 in 561
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 965	1 in 1,008

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

Side by side

	Lake Balkhash	Hawaii
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	StateUnited States
Area, measured	17,600 km²6,790 mi²	16,800 km²6,510 mi²
Area, published	18,200 km²Wikidata	28,300 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	15th of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	25 mWikidata	–
Volume	106 km³	–
Latitude range	45°N to 47°N	19°N to 28°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 Hawaii

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