Shanghai is 1.08× the size of Issyk-Kul

Shanghai (municipality) covers about 6,750 km² (2,600 mi²) and Issyk-Kul (alkaline lake) about 6,260 km² (2,420 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Issyk-Kul outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

6,750km²Shanghai
6,260km²Issyk-Kul

50 km

Shanghai
Issyk-Kul

What fits

Issyk-Kul is 93% of the size of Shanghai.
Shanghai is larger by 484 km² (187 mi²), which is 7.7% of the area of Issyk-Kul.
Measured in Belgiums: Shanghai is about 0.22, Issyk-Kul about 0.20.

How they differ

Their centres are about 4,080 km apart.
On a standard web map Issyk-Kul looks larger than Shanghai: Shanghai at 31°N is drawn about 1.4× too large and Issyk-Kul at 42°N about 1.8×, so the map shows Issyk-Kul as 1.25× the size of Shanghai, when Shanghai is 1.08× the size of Issyk-Kul.
Together Shanghai and Issyk-Kul cover 13,000 km², close to the size of Bahamas (12,600 km², 3.1% smaller).
The gap between them, 484 km², is about the size of Palau (492 km²).
Issyk-Kul's centre is 11.3° of latitude, about 1,250 km, farther north than Shanghai's.
Shanghai is a municipality of China; it is not drawn with its waters removed, and its measured area is the Natural Earth outline's.
Issyk-Kul is a salt or alkaline lake and ranks 24th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Shanghai stretches about 128 km north to south and 107 km east to west; Issyk-Kul about 66 km by 175 km.
Poured over Shanghai, the 1,738 km³ that Wikidata records for Issyk-Kul would stand 258 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 6,240 km² agrees with our measured 6,260 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Shanghai	1.08×
Farther north	Issyk-Kul	11.3° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Issyk-Kul	1.8× against 1.4×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Shanghai	Issyk-Kul
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.22×	0.20×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.03×	0.03×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
France 548,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
India 3,151,000 km²	1 in 467	1 in 503
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 1,256	1 in 1,353
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 1,400	1 in 1,509
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 2,517	1 in 2,711

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

Side by side

	Shanghai	Issyk-Kul
Is a	MunicipalityChina	Alkaline lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	6,750 km²2,600 mi²	6,260 km²2,420 mi²
Area, published	6,340 km²Wikidata	6,240 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	24th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	668 mWikidata
Volume	–	1,738 km³
Latitude range	31°N to 32°N	42°N to 43°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 Kyrgyzstan contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Issyk-Kul. 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 Shanghai

Similar in size to Issyk-Kul

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