Lake
Lake Baikal
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Baikal measures about 31,500 km² (12,200 mi²), the 7th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and about the same size as Belgium.
100 km
- Lake Baikal
- Belgium
The numbers
- 31,500km²Area, measured12,200 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 31,700km²Area, publishedWikidata · agrees within 2%
- 1,642mGreatest depthaverage about 749 m
- 23,615km³VolumeWikidata
- 456mAbove 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 Baikal
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 12.0× the size of Lake Baikal; Lake Baikal ranks 7th.
- Lake Baikal sits between Lake Tanganyika (32,800 km²) and Great Bear Lake (30,900 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Baikal would be larger than 73 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 140th by area, between Guinea-Bissau (32,800 km²) and Belgium (30,700 km²).
- It is larger than 10 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Maryland, 25,500 km²) and smaller than 41.
- It is larger than 3 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Beijing, 16,300 km²) and smaller than 28.
- The closest Chinese province is Hainan (33,800 km²): Lake Baikal is 93% of the size of Hainan.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 1,642 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 749 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 23,615 km³. Poured over Belgium (30,700 km²), that water would stand 770 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 456 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 53°N is drawn about 2.8× too large in area, so Lake Baikal looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, Lake Baikal stretches about 478 km north to south and 416 km east to west.
- Wikidata’s published figure of 31,700 km² agrees with our measured 31,500 km², to within 2%.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Russia contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Baikal. 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 Baikalthe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Baikalalso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Baikal ranks
Lake Baikal is the 7th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Baikal
Share this outline
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