Lake
Lake Superior
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Superior measures about 82,300 km² (31,800 mi²), the 2nd largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and about the same size as Austria.
100 km
- Austria
- Lake Superior
The numbers
- 82,300km²Area, measured31,800 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 82,400km²Area, publishedWikidata · agrees within 2%
- 406mGreatest depthaverage about 147 m
- 12,100km³VolumeWikidata
- 183mAbove 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 Superior
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 4.61× the size of Lake Superior; Lake Superior ranks 2nd.
- Lake Superior sits between the Caspian Sea (379,000 km²) and Lake Victoria (67,000 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Superior would be larger than 97 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 116th by area, between Austria (84,000 km²) and Czechia (78,800 km²).
- It is larger than 12 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is South Carolina, 80,200 km²) and smaller than 39.
- 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 Chinese province is Chongqing (82,400 km²): Lake Superior is about the same size as Chongqing.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 406 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 147 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 12,100 km³. Poured over Austria (84,000 km²), that water would stand 144 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 183 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 48°N is drawn about 2.2× too large in area, so Lake Superior looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, Lake Superior stretches about 287 km north to south and 590 km east to west.
- Natural Earth draws Whitefish Bay (1,950 km²) as a separate outline inside this one; it is part of Lake Superior, not another lake, and is counted once.
- Wikidata’s published figure of 82,400 km² agrees with our measured 82,300 km², to within 2%.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Canada and the United States contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Superior. 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 Superiorthe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Great Lakesalso calledsource: Natural Earth
- Superioralso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Superior ranks
Lake Superior is the 2nd largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Superior
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