Lagoon
Lake Maracaibo
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Maracaibo measures about 12,200 km² (4,710 mi²), the 16th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and about the same size as Vanuatu.
100 km
- Vanuatu
- Lake Maracaibo
The numbers
- 12,200km²Area, measured4,710 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 13,200km²Area, publishedWikidata · 7.7% above our measure, flagged
- 60mGreatest depthaverage about 23 m
- 280km³VolumeWikidata
- 0mAbove 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%. This one is between 5% and 10% apart, so it is flagged and no comparison is built for it automatically.
What the numbers say about Lake Maracaibo
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 31.1× the size of Lake Maracaibo; Lake Maracaibo ranks 16th.
- Lake Maracaibo sits between Lake Balkhash (17,600 km²) and Lake Onega (9,950 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Maracaibo would be larger than 51 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 162nd by area, between Vanuatu (12,300 km²) and Falkland Islands (11,600 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 2 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Tianjin, 11,500 km²) and smaller than 29.
- The closest US state is Connecticut (12,700 km²): Lake Maracaibo is 96% of the size of Connecticut.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 60 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 23 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 280 km³. Poured over Belgium (30,700 km²), that water would stand 9.1 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 0 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- Lake Maracaibo lies at 10°N, close to the equator, where a standard web map (Web Mercator) is nearly true to size: it inflates area by only about 1.0×.
- Laid out flat, Lake Maracaibo stretches about 192 km north to south and 116 km east to west.
- Our measured 12,200 km² is 7.7% below Wikidata’s published figure of 13,200 km². This difference is flagged for review: a lake’s outline may include islands or bays that the published figure leaves out, or the water level may differ. The outline is kept because it is within 10%, and this page is not matched automatically to any other.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Venezuela contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Maracaibo. 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 Maracaibothe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Lago de Maracaiboalso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Maracaibo ranks
Lake Maracaibo is the 16th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
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