Lake Victoria is 1.07× the size of West Virginia

Lake Victoria (lake) covers about 67,000 km² (25,900 mi²) and West Virginia (state) about 62,700 km² (24,200 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Victoria outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

67,000km²Lake Victoria
62,700km²West Virginia

100 km

Lake Victoria
West Virginia

What fits

West Virginia is 94% of the size of Lake Victoria.
Lake Victoria is larger by 4,300 km² (1,660 mi²), which is 6.8% of the area of West Virginia.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Victoria is about 2.19, West Virginia about 2.05.

How they differ

Their centres are about 12,100 km apart.
On a standard web map West Virginia looks larger than Lake Victoria: Lake Victoria at 1°S is drawn about 1.0× too large and West Virginia at 39°N about 1.6×, so the map shows West Virginia as 1.53× the size of Lake Victoria, when Lake Victoria is 1.07× the size of West Virginia.
Together Lake Victoria and West Virginia cover 130,000 km², close to the size of Nicaragua (129,000 km², 0.8% smaller).
The gap between them, 4,300 km², is about the size of Cape Verde (3,930 km²).
West Virginia's centre is 39.7° of latitude, about 4,420 km, farther north than Lake Victoria's.
Lake Victoria is a lake and ranks 3rd of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
West Virginia 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 Victoria stretches about 390 km north to south and 361 km east to west; West Virginia about 382 km by 424 km.
Poured over West Virginia, the 2,750 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Victoria would stand 44 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 68,100 km² agrees with our measured 67,000 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Lake Victoria	1.07×
Farther north	West Virginia	39.7° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	West Virginia	1.6× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Victoria	West Virginia
Belgium 30,700 km²	2.19×	2.05×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.27×	0.26×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.19×	0.18×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.18×	0.17×
France 548,000 km²	0.12×	0.11×
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 253	1 in 271

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

Side by side

	Lake Victoria	West Virginia
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	StateUnited States
Area, measured	67,000 km²25,900 mi²	62,700 km²24,200 mi²
Area, published	68,100 km²Wikidata	62,800 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	3rd of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	83 mWikidata	–
Volume	2,750 km³	–
Latitude range	3°S to 0°N	37°N to 41°N
On the shore	3 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 Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Victoria. 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 Victoria

Similar in size to West Virginia

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