The World's Biggest Lakes

geography · water · natural wonders · Earth

Lakes are enormous. A lake is counted as one of the world's biggest when it covers more than 3,000 square kilometers, which is huge. That's about the size of the entire state of Rhode Island.

Not all water counts. The biggest lakes list doesn't include reservoirs (human-made lakes behind dams) or lagoons (shallow water separated from the ocean by a barrier). Only natural lakes make the cut.

Ranked by size. Scientists rank the world's lakes by measuring their surface area, which is how much water the lake covers from above, like a giant blue puddle viewed from space.

Spread across continents. The world's largest lakes are found on different continents, from North America to Asia to Africa, showing that these massive bodies of water exist all over the planet.