Deepest lake in the world

What to remember

In southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia, Lake Baikal goes down to 1,642 m. No lake in the world is deeper.

By surface area, this rift lake is only the seventh largest in the world, at 31,722 km², slightly larger than Belgium, and second in Eurasia after the Caspian Sea. Depth changes everything: it makes Baikal the largest freshwater lake by volume, with 23,615.39 km³, or 22 to 23% of the world's fresh surface water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined. Its volume is close to that of the Baltic Sea.

Baikal is also the oldest lake in the world, at 25 to 30 million years, and among the clearest. It is sometimes called the 'sacred sea'.