Lake
Lake Michigan
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Michigan measures about 57,500 km² (22,200 mi²), the 5th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and about the same size as Togo.
100 km
- Lake Michigan
- Togo
The numbers
- 57,500km²Area, measured22,200 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 57,800km²Area, publishedWikidata · agrees within 2%
- 281mGreatest depthaverage about 85.5 m
- 4,918km³VolumeWikidata
- 176mAbove 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 Michigan
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 6.59× the size of Lake Michigan; Lake Michigan ranks 5th.
- Lake Michigan sits between Lake Huron (59,900 km²) and Lake Tanganyika (32,800 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Michigan would be larger than 87 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 126th by area, between Latvia (64,600 km²) and Togo (56,900 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 5 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Ningxia, 52,100 km²) and smaller than 26.
- The closest US state is West Virginia (62,700 km²): Lake Michigan is 92% of the size of West Virginia.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 281 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 85 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 4,918 km³. Poured over Ireland (69,400 km²), that water would stand 71 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 176 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 44°N is drawn about 1.9× too large in area, so Lake Michigan looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, Lake Michigan stretches about 499 km north to south and 255 km east to west.
- Wikidata’s published figure of 57,800 km² agrees with our measured 57,500 km², to within 2%.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
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.
Names
- Lake Michiganthe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Great Lakesalso calledsource: Natural Earth
- Michiganalso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Michigan ranks
Lake Michigan is the 5th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Michigan
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