Lake
Lake Athabasca
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Athabasca measures about 8,090 km² (3,120 mi²), the 19th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and 81% of the size of Lebanon.
50 km
- Lebanon
- Lake Athabasca
The numbers
- 8,090km²Area, measured3,120 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 7,850km²Area, publishedWikidata · 3.1% below our measure
- 243mGreatest depthaverage about 25.2 m
- 204km³VolumeWikidata
- 213mAbove sea levelSurface, Wikidata
The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%.
What the numbers say about Lake Athabasca
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 46.9× the size of Lake Athabasca; Lake Athabasca ranks 19th.
- Lake Athabasca sits between Lake Titicaca (8,110 km²) and Lake Volta (7,960 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Athabasca would be larger than 45 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 168th by area, between Lebanon (10,000 km²) and Palestine (6,070 km²).
- It is larger than 3 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Delaware, 5,170 km²) and smaller than 48.
- It is larger than 1 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Shanghai, 6,750 km²) and smaller than 30.
- The closest Chinese province is Shanghai (6,750 km²): Lake Athabasca is 1.20× the size of Shanghai.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 243 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 25 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 204 km³. Poured over Belgium (30,700 km²), that water would stand 6.7 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 213 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 59°N is drawn about 3.8× too large in area, so Lake Athabasca looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, Lake Athabasca stretches about 125 km north to south and 303 km east to west.
- Our measured 8,090 km² is 3.1% above Wikidata’s published figure of 7,850 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Athabasca. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.
Names
- Lake Athabascathe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Athabascaalso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Athabasca ranks
Lake Athabasca is the 19th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Athabasca
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Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Lakes + Reservoirs, public domain (Lakes + Reservoirs). Outlines of lakes are drawn at 1:10 million.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Depth, volume, height
- As recorded in Wikidata; a volume that cannot be right for the area and depth is left out.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11