Shanghai and Reindeer Lake are almost exactly the same size

Shanghai (municipality) covers about 6,750 km² (2,600 mi²) and Reindeer Lake (lake) about 6,720 km² (2,590 mi²). Their outlines are laid over each other below at one scale. The Reindeer Lake outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

6,750km²Shanghai
6,720km²Reindeer Lake

20 km

Shanghai
Reindeer Lake

What fits

Reindeer Lake is 100% of the size of Shanghai.
The measured areas differ by 26.5 km², less than half a percent: closer than the measurement itself is certain.
Measured in Belgiums: Shanghai is about 0.22, Reindeer Lake about 0.22.

How they differ

Their centres are about 9,350 km apart.
On a standard web map Reindeer Lake looks larger than Shanghai: Shanghai at 31°N is drawn about 1.4× too large and Reindeer Lake at 57°N about 3.4×, so the map shows Reindeer Lake as 2.50× the size of Shanghai, when Shanghai is 1.00× the size of Reindeer Lake.
Together Shanghai and Reindeer Lake cover 13,500 km², close to the size of Montenegro (13,700 km², 1.9% bigger).
Reindeer Lake's centre is 26.1° of latitude, about 2,900 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.
Reindeer Lake is a lake and ranks 23rd 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; Reindeer Lake about 211 km by 109 km.
Poured over Shanghai, the 95 km³ that Wikidata records for Reindeer Lake would stand 14 m deep.
Our measured 6,720 km² is 3.4% above Wikidata’s published figure of 6,500 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Shanghai	1.00×
Farther north	Reindeer Lake	26.1° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Reindeer Lake	3.4× against 1.4×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Shanghai	Reindeer Lake
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.22×	0.22×
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 469
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 1,256	1 in 1,261
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 1,400	1 in 1,406
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 2,517	1 in 2,527

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

Side by side

	Shanghai	Reindeer Lake
Is a	MunicipalityChina	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	6,750 km²2,600 mi²	6,720 km²2,590 mi²
Area, published	6,340 km²Wikidata	6,500 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	23rd of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	219 mWikidata
Volume	–	95 km³
Latitude range	31°N to 32°N	56°N to 58°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 Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Reindeer Lake. 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 Reindeer Lake

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