Lake
Lake Victoria
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Victoria measures about 67,000 km² (25,900 mi²), the 3rd largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and 97% of the size of Ireland.
100 km
- Ireland
- Lake Victoria
The numbers
- 67,000km²Area, measured25,900 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 68,100km²Area, publishedWikidata · agrees within 2%
- 83mGreatest depthaverage about 41 m
- 2,750km³VolumeWikidata
- 1,133mAbove 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 Victoria
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 5.66× the size of Lake Victoria; Lake Victoria ranks 3rd.
- Lake Victoria sits between Lake Superior (82,300 km²) and Lake Huron (59,900 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Victoria would be larger than 90 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 123rd by area, between Ireland (69,400 km²) and Sri Lanka (66,300 km²).
- It is larger than 11 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is West Virginia, 62,700 km²) and smaller than 40.
- 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 Victoria is 1.07× the size of West Virginia.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 83 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 41 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 2,750 km³. Poured over Ireland (69,400 km²), that water would stand 40 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 1,133 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- Lake Victoria lies at 1°S, 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 Victoria stretches about 390 km north to south and 361 km east to west.
- Wikidata’s published figure of 68,100 km² agrees with our measured 67,000 km², to within 2%.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
Natural Earth’s outlines of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Victoria. 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 Victoriathe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Nyanzaalso calledsource: Natural Earth
- Victoria Nyanzaalso calledsource: Wikidata alias
- Lake Nyanzaalso calledsource: Wikidata alias
Where Lake Victoria ranks
Lake Victoria is the 3rd largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Victoria
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