Vänern is 1.11× the size of Delaware

Vänern (lake) covers about 5,750 km² (2,220 mi²) and Delaware (state) about 5,170 km² (2,000 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Vänern outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

5,750km²Vänern
5,170km²Delaware

20 km

Vänern
Delaware

What fits

Delaware is 90% of the size of Vänern.
Vänern is larger by 581 km² (224 mi²), which is 11% of the area of Delaware.
Measured in Belgiums: Vänern is about 0.19, Delaware about 0.17.

How they differ

Their centres are about 6,320 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Vänern at 59°N is drawn about 3.8× too large and Delaware at 39°N about 1.7×, so the map shows Vänern as 2.52× the size of Delaware instead of 1.11×.
Together Vänern and Delaware cover 10,900 km², close to the size of Kosovo (10,900 km², 0.1% smaller).
The gap between them, 581 km², is about the size of Isle of Man (575 km²).
Vänern's centre is 19.9° of latitude, about 2,210 km, farther north than Delaware's.
Vänern is a lake and ranks 25th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Delaware 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, Vänern stretches about 117 km north to south and 105 km east to west; Delaware about 154 km by 65 km.
Poured over Delaware, the 153 km³ that Wikidata records for Vänern would stand 30 m deep.
Wikidata’s published figure of 5,650 km² agrees with our measured 5,750 km², to within 2%.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Vänern	1.11×
Farther north	Vänern	19.9° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Vänern	3.8× against 1.7×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Vänern	Delaware
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.19×	0.17×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.02×	0.02×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.02×	0.01×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.02×	0.01×
France 548,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
India 3,151,000 km²	1 in 548	1 in 609
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 1,473	1 in 1,638
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 1,642	1 in 1,827
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 2,952	1 in 3,283

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

Side by side

	Vänern	Delaware
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	StateUnited States
Area, measured	5,750 km²2,220 mi²	5,170 km²2,000 mi²
Area, published	5,650 km²Wikidata	6,450 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	25th of 104lakes	–
Greatest depth	106 mWikidata	–
Volume	153 km³	–
Latitude range	58°N to 59°N	38°N to 40°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 Sweden contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Vänern. 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 Vänern

Similar in size to Delaware

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