Lake BaikalThe world's deepest and oldest lake
Narrow on a map. Vast beneath the surface.
- Surface area
- 31,722 km²
- Water volume
- 23,615 km³
- Max depth
- 1,642 m
See its true size
One shared area scaleBoth outlines share one area scale. The bars compare water volume.
Reference data: US EPA: Great Lakes physical features (2025).
Simplified outlines: Natural Earth (public domain), reprojected to one shared scale.
among the 18 lakes in this section
Baikal holds more fresh water than all five of North America's Great Lakes combined, despite having only about 13 percent of their combined surface area. Depth, not outline alone, explains the result.
The map intuition
Baikal looks like a thin line on a map of Siberia, making its volume easy to underestimate.
About the lake
Baikal sits in a tectonic rift that is still widening. Its floor drops to 1,642 m, with several more kilometres of sediment below. Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake on Earth, with an estimated age of about 25 million years.
On a map, Baikal is a narrow crescent covering 31,722 km². Its great depth allows it to hold about 23,615 km³ of water. UNESCO reports that this is nearly 20 percent of Earth's unfrozen freshwater reserve.
- Mean depth
- 744 m
- Surface elevation
- 455 m a.s.l.
- Location
- Russia (Siberia)
- Type
- tectonic (rift) lake
Where the lake is
Lake Baikal: Questions
Volume depends on both area and depth. Baikal is up to 1,642 m deep and averages 744 m. That allows its 31,722 km² surface to hold 23,615 km³ of water.
UNESCO reports that Baikal contains nearly 20 percent of Earth's unfrozen freshwater reserve, more than any other single lake.
About 25 million years, making it the oldest lake on Earth. Most glacial lakes are only a few tens of thousands of years old.
Sources and data year
- Encyclopædia Britannica: jezioro Bajkał (2024)
- UNESCO: Baikal and the world's freshwater reserve (2024)
Outline: Natural Earth, public domain. Simplified and reprojected.