Reservoir
Lake Volta
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Volta measures about 7,960 km² (3,070 mi²), the 20th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and 80% of the size of Lebanon.
50 km
- Lebanon
- Lake Volta
The numbers
- 7,960km²Area, measured3,070 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 8,500km²Area, publishedWikidata · 6.4% above our measure, flagged
- 75mGreatest depthaverage about 18.6 m
- 148km³VolumeWikidata
- 85mAbove 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 Volta
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 47.7× the size of Lake Volta; Lake Volta ranks 20th.
- Lake Volta sits between Lake Athabasca (8,090 km²) and Lake Nicaragua (7,820 km²) in the ranking.
- It is a reservoir, made by a dam, and the largest of the 14 reservoirs in this ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Volta would be larger than 45 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 168th by area, between Lebanon (10,000 km²) and Palestine (6,070 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 1 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Shanghai, 6,750 km²) and smaller than 30.
- The closest Chinese province is Shanghai (6,750 km²): Lake Volta is 1.18× the size of Shanghai.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 75 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 19 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 148 km³. Poured over Belgium (30,700 km²), that water would stand 4.8 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 85 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- Lake Volta lies at 8°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 Volta stretches about 309 km north to south and 225 km east to west.
- Our measured 7,960 km² is 6.4% below Wikidata’s published figure of 8,500 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 Ghana contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Volta. 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 Voltathe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Voltaalso calledsource: Natural Earth
Where Lake Volta ranks
Lake Volta is the 20th 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