Lake Michigan is 1.01× the size of Togo

Lake Michigan (lake) covers about 57,500 km² (22,200 mi²) and Togo (country) about 56,900 km² (22,000 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
56,900km²Togo

100 km

Lake Michigan
Togo

What fits

Togo is 99% of the size of Lake Michigan.
Lake Michigan is larger by 677 km² (261 mi²), which is 1.2% of the area of Togo.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Michigan is about 1.88, Togo about 1.85.

How they differ

Their centres are about 9,170 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Lake Michigan at 44°N is drawn about 1.9× too large and Togo at 9°N about 1.0×, so the map shows Lake Michigan as 1.91× the size of Togo instead of 1.01×.
Together Lake Michigan and Togo cover 114,000 km², close to the size of Bulgaria (113,000 km², 1.4% smaller).
The gap between them, 677 km², is about the size of Bahrain (688 km²).
Lake Michigan's centre is 35.5° of latitude, about 3,940 km, farther north than Togo's.
Lake Michigan is a lake and ranks 5th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Togo ranks 126th of 212 countries by area.
Laid out flat, Lake Michigan stretches about 499 km north to south and 255 km east to west; Togo about 560 km by 214 km.
Poured over Togo, the 4,918 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Michigan would stand 86 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	1.01×
Farther north	Lake Michigan	35.5° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Michigan	1.9× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Michigan	Togo
Belgium 30,700 km²	1.88×	1.85×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.24×	0.23×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.16×	0.16×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.15×	0.15×
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 299

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

Side by side

	Lake Michigan	Togo
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	CountryAfrica
Area, measured	57,500 km²22,200 mi²	56,900 km²22,000 mi²
Area, published	57,800 km²Wikidata	56,800 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	5th of 104lakes	126th of 212countries
Greatest depth	281 mWikidata	–
Volume	4,918 km³	–
Latitude range	42°N to 46°N	6°N to 11°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 Togo

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