Lake Michigan is 1.10× the size of Ningxia

Lake Michigan (lake) covers about 57,500 km² (22,200 mi²) and Ningxia (autonomous region) about 52,100 km² (20,100 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Michigan outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

57,500km²Lake Michigan
52,100km²Ningxia

100 km

Lake Michigan
Ningxia

What fits

Ningxia is 91% of the size of Lake Michigan.
Lake Michigan is larger by 5,410 km² (2,090 mi²), which is 10% of the area of Ningxia.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Michigan is about 1.88, Ningxia about 1.70.

How they differ

Their centres are about 10,900 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Lake Michigan at 44°N is drawn about 1.9× too large and Ningxia at 37°N about 1.6×, so the map shows Lake Michigan as 1.35× the size of Ningxia instead of 1.10×.
Together Lake Michigan and Ningxia cover 110,000 km², close to the size of Cuba (110,000 km², 0.2% bigger).
The gap between them, 5,410 km², is about the size of Cyprus (5,400 km²).
Lake Michigan's centre is 6.7° of latitude, about 750 km, farther north than Ningxia's.
Lake Michigan is a lake and ranks 5th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Ningxia is an autonomous region of China; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
Laid out flat, Lake Michigan stretches about 499 km north to south and 255 km east to west; Ningxia about 458 km by 291 km.
Poured over Ningxia, the 4,918 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Michigan would stand 94 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 57,800 km² agrees with our measured 57,500 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Lake Michigan	1.10×
Farther north	Lake Michigan	6.7° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Michigan	1.9× against 1.6×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Michigan	Ningxia
Belgium 30,700 km²	1.88×	1.70×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.24×	0.21×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.16×	0.15×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.15×	0.14×
France 548,000 km²	0.11×	0.10×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
United States 9,447,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 295	1 in 326

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

Side by side

	Lake Michigan	Ningxia
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	Autonomous RegionChina
Area, measured	57,500 km²22,200 mi²	52,100 km²20,100 mi²
Area, published	57,800 km²Wikidata	52,200 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	5th of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	281 mWikidata	–
Volume	4,918 km³	–
Latitude range	42°N to 46°N	35°N to 39°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 the United States contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Michigan. 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 Michigan

Similar in size to Ningxia

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