Vättern

The numbers

• 1,960km²Area, measured756 mi² · Natural Earth outline
• 1,890km²Area, publishedWikidata · 3.4% below our measure
• 128mGreatest depthaverage about 39.6 m
• 77.6km³VolumeWikidata
• 89mAbove 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 Vättern

• The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 194× the size of Vättern; Vättern ranks 61st.
• Vättern sits between Lake Chany (2,040 km²) and Lake General Carrera/Buenos Aires (1,900 km²) in the ranking.
• Counted as a country, Vättern would be larger than 36 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 177th by area, between Mauritius (2,000 km²) and the Comoros (1,670 km²).
• It is larger than 1 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Washington, D.C., 162 km²) and smaller than 50.
• It is smaller than every one of the 31 provinces and regions of China.
• The closest US state is Rhode Island (2,830 km²): Vättern is 69% of the size of Rhode Island.
• Wikidata records a greatest depth of 128 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 40 m.
• Wikidata records a volume of 78 km³. Poured over Mauritius (2,000 km²), that water would stand 39 m deep.
• Its surface lies about 89 m above sea level (Wikidata).
• On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 58°N is drawn about 3.6× too large in area, so Vättern looks bigger there than it is.
• Laid out flat, Vättern stretches about 122 km north to south and 53 km east to west.
• Our measured 1,960 km² is 3.4% above Wikidata’s published figure of 1,890 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

About the same size as

On the shore

• Sweden

Natural Earth’s outlines of Sweden contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Vättern. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.