Lake Ladoga is 1.09× the size of Beijing

Lake Ladoga (lake) covers about 17,700 km² (6,820 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 Ladoga outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

17,700km²Lake Ladoga
16,300km²Beijing

50 km

Lake Ladoga
Beijing

What fits

Beijing is 92% of the size of Lake Ladoga.
Lake Ladoga is larger by 1,410 km² (546 mi²), which is 8.7% of the area of Beijing.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Ladoga is about 0.58, Beijing about 0.53.

How they differ

Their centres are about 5,940 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Lake Ladoga at 61°N is drawn about 4.2× too large and Beijing at 40°N about 1.7×, so the map shows Lake Ladoga as 2.67× the size of Beijing instead of 1.09×.
Together Lake Ladoga and Beijing cover 33,900 km², close to the size of Moldova (33,200 km², 2.1% smaller).
The gap between them, 1,410 km², is about the size of Comoros (1,670 km²).
Lake Ladoga's centre is 20.7° of latitude, about 2,300 km, farther north than Beijing's.
Lake Ladoga is a lake and ranks 14th 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 Ladoga stretches about 209 km north to south and 171 km east to west; Beijing about 178 km by 175 km.
Poured over Beijing, the 838 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Ladoga would stand 52 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 17,700 km² agrees with our measured 17,700 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Lake Ladoga	1.09×
Farther north	Lake Ladoga	20.7° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Ladoga	4.2× against 1.7×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Ladoga	Beijing
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.58×	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 480	1 in 521
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 535	1 in 581
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 961	1 in 1,045

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

Side by side

	Lake Ladoga	Beijing
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	MunicipalityChina
Area, measured	17,700 km²6,820 mi²	16,300 km²6,270 mi²
Area, published	17,700 km²Wikidata	16,400 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	14th of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	230 mWikidata	–
Volume	838 km³	–
Latitude range	60°N to 62°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 Russia contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Ladoga. 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 Ladoga

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