West Virginia is 1.09× the size of Lake Michigan

West Virginia (state) covers about 62,700 km² (24,200 mi²) and Lake Michigan (lake) about 57,500 km² (22,200 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.

62,700km²West Virginia
57,500km²Lake Michigan

100 km

West Virginia
Lake Michigan

What fits

Lake Michigan is 92% of the size of West Virginia.
West Virginia is larger by 5,200 km² (2,010 mi²), which is 9.0% of the area of Lake Michigan.
Measured in Belgiums: West Virginia is about 2.05, Lake Michigan about 1.88.

How they differ

Their centres are about 786 km apart.
On a standard web map Lake Michigan looks larger than West Virginia: West Virginia at 39°N is drawn about 1.6× too large and Lake Michigan at 44°N about 1.9×, so the map shows Lake Michigan as 1.08× the size of West Virginia, when West Virginia is 1.09× the size of Lake Michigan.
Together West Virginia and Lake Michigan cover 120,000 km², close to the size of Malawi (119,000 km², 0.7% smaller).
The gap between them, 5,200 km², is about the size of Trinidad and Tobago (5,120 km²).
Lake Michigan's centre is 5.3° of latitude, about 590 km, farther north than West Virginia's.
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.
Lake Michigan is a lake and ranks 5th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, West Virginia stretches about 382 km north to south and 424 km east to west; Lake Michigan about 499 km by 255 km.
Poured over West Virginia, the 4,918 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Michigan would stand 78 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	West Virginia	1.09×
Farther north	Lake Michigan	5.3° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Lake Michigan	1.9× against 1.6×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	West Virginia	Lake Michigan
Belgium 30,700 km²	2.05×	1.88×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.26×	0.24×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.18×	0.16×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.17×	0.15×
France 548,000 km²	0.11×	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 271	1 in 295

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

Side by side

	West Virginia	Lake Michigan
Is a	StateUnited States	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	62,700 km²24,200 mi²	57,500 km²22,200 mi²
Area, published	62,800 km²Wikidata	57,800 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	–	5th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	281 mWikidata
Volume	–	4,918 km³
Latitude range	37°N to 41°N	42°N to 46°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 West Virginia

Similar in size to Lake Michigan

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