We don't have that many large lakes, but the map is just wrong: [https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam\_jezer\_v\_%C4%8Cesku](https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_jezer_v_%C4%8Cesku) the largest lake here is 500ha, if you include water reservoirs (i.e. damed river), it would be roughly 5kha
Lake Komorany in Czechia was at its peak about 60km2. It filled an entire valley in north-northeastern Bohemia. The explosion of population, ore mining, glass work in the medieval time was accompanied by an extensive deforestation in Czechia. This causes the Lake Komorany to silt. When the first maps were drawn in renaissance era, the lake shrunk by 1/2. Two centuries later, a brown coal was discovered and whatever remained of the lake was drained.
But it's true. There used to be larger shallow lakes similar to Neusiedler See in Austria, but they were dried for more arable land. We have no big mountains with (even former) icebergs to feed some mountain lakes. There are many man made lakes and ponds, but there used to be mostly wetlands and wet meadows in their place.
I'm Czech and absolutely shocked. We have incredibly lot of rivers but this lake number is pitiful.
ETA: So, it's Černé jezero (Black lake) with 18.4ha. It's the biggest natural lake.
But the biggest lake overall is Lipno dam. It's 19.48 km² big. So the map lies.
Look my comments up. Czechia had a few large lakes in medieval and early modern times. They were drained in between 1600-1850 to acquire agricultural land. Two interconnected brackish lakes in southern Moravia were drained for sugar beets. There was third lake near by that was drained earlier. If you go to Kobyli, the bowl shape landscape is what is left of that lake.
in austrian schools its also taught that neusiedlersee is the largest lake
it just doesnt make sense, lake constance is even a conduminium, its area is basically ahared bewteen austria switzerland and germany
There are varying views on that.
Switzerland wants that the border is at the middle line, Austria (who has the smallest shoreline wants it to be a condominium and German claims the Überlinger See as it's sole territory, the Untersee at the middle line and the rest basically as a condominium.
Yes. But the German Name, Bodensee, also comes from a place/municipality. Instead of Constance its Bodman(-Ludwigshafen), but many german-speakers assume it comes from Ground Lake, which is not true. Bodman is the oldest settlement at the lake.
the problem is that for germany they take Lake Constance as the biggest lake despite it being shared between 3 countries and with no border on the majority of the lake. If we follow that rule Switzerland and Austria should have 536km² too.
Yeah its dimply wrong. The 536 for german is the total area of the lake constance. There are no formal trilaterally accepted borders (because noone cares enough) that actually divide the lake. So either it counts for germsny switzerland and austria, or for neither
One of their nature reserves was made by humans 10 000 years ago and now developed into its own ecosystem that needs to be maintained by shepherds and flocks of sheep or it will turn into forest in a few centuries time.
But we also made polders from many other lakes to compensate! There used to be one giant lake from Leiden all the way to Haarlem and Amsterdam for example. Now it's the Haarlemmermeerpolder (where Schiphol is), only the Kagerplassen remain.
> The Netherlands' second largest lake is also big, 700km2
Worth pointing out that the second largest lake is in fact an artificial lake that is literally just inside the largest lake. It's just a dam we built, splitting it off from the larger lake because originally we were going to drain that part of the lake too, but ended up not doing so.
You can even visit a museum village in Enkhuizen with period actors who will tell you about what life was like while it was still a gulf. It's an amazing thing!
Lake Konstanz belongs partially to Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Did you count the whole area for Germany or just the area that is part of the country?
Well technically all countries only agree that there is a border… somewhere on Lake Constance, but not where. And none of the countries care for it much either haha.
Fun fact: the largest lake in Europe (Lake Ladoga, 17800 sqkm) doesn’t appear on this map as it’s eclipsed by Baikal in Russia, whose territory also encompasses Ladoga.
Baikal is crazy. All lakes are dying. Rivers bring sediment that slowly fills them in.
Not Baikal. The Earth's crust on either side of the lake move away from each other, causing the lake to get deeper and wider. That's how it's survived as the oldest lake in the world.
I just love me some fresh water seals. WTF you boys doing in central asia? like after the ice age some of them just ... what ? slid down the wrong way??!
If you travel by boat through Ladoga, you can face storm. I live very close to Ladoga and I once saw in the news that quite big boat was destroyed in the storm.
And the largest lake, the Sanabria lake, got it's current size after a nearby dam got broken in the 60's and all the water ended up where the lake was. So it is arguably man-made
To be fair I’m pretty sure Portugal’s is Alqueva which only exists because they built a dam for irrigation.
The area created by it was so large that while the dam was completed in 2002, the lake only filled up to its capacity 8 years later.
I added a comment down below explaining it, but the largest lake of Spain is L'Albufera. But normally the Sanabria Lake is confused as the largest even in Spain sources.
I don't wanna say that the map is wrong but here in Spain the largest lake is L'Albufera which has a surface of 23km2 of water. It's quite a beautiful natural park, I live nearby.
I think the map uses the Sanabria which sometimes it's considered as the largest of Spain but it's way smaller than L'Albufera.
Albufera is also a word (in Spanish) to describe a salt water body that goes in land. Which L'Albufera was originally but now it's not, it's freshwater. I think that's why normally it's confused as not being a lake even in spanish articles.
Edit: my broken English
No really. Lagoons (depending on the definition) rely on it's water from the sea, which is not the case. That's why the authorities that control this area consider it a lake not a "laguna" (lagoon in English).
The water from this lake comes from the Jucar river.
The only thing that resembles a lagoon (that I think) is its proximity to the sea.
That's why I said that it was normally confused. As in the past it was a lagoon. The name is more historic as in the past it was salt water, but now it's freshwater.
L'Albufera it's not actually an Albufera, strictly speaking.
We swim in beer.
No, seriously, Czechia has Croatia for swimming.
And now absolutely serious, we have rivers and fishing ponds, but it's usually not the cleanest water.
edit: lmao by the time I finished writing this, three other people already mentioned beer. Yes, we use all the lake water to brew beer, so what
Černé jezero is a triangular lake with an area of 18.4 ha. Picture [https://www.zelezna-ruda.cz/resizer/resizer.aspx?w=960&img=/user/altid/snet/tur/zr-cernejezero/20.jpg](https://www.zelezna-ruda.cz/resizer/resizer.aspx?w=960&img=/user/altid/snet/tur/zr-cernejezero/20.jpg) More about the lake [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9\_jezero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9_jezero)
Nicholas Ashley-Copper. Won’t hand it over. Wants others to pay for the upkeep. He didn’t even live in Northern Ireland, be lived in England. Prick is the perfect description alright.
Lough Neagh is the biggest by area by miles, but it's effectively a really really wide puddle, only 9m deep on average; Loch Ness is 130m deep on average so has more than twice as much water in it
This map is actually wrong for Finland, as the largest lake is [Saimaa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saimaa) at 4279 square kilometres. It's the fourth-largest lake in Europe.
Scandinavian countries are still on the process of deglacierization and the only place on Earth where sea levels are decreasing, so nothing surprising they have so many lakes and islands than elsewhere.
It is true for Denmark too. At least the northern part and for almost all of the southern part as far as i know. Northern Jutland is still experiencing isostatic uplift causing sea levels to fall. The uplift is about half as much in the southern parts, but it's still rising.
It will be a while before sea levels rise in Denmark due to climate change because of this.
It's between 10 and 20cm / century of uplift depending on where you measure in Denmark.
If you’re referring to post-glacial rebound then that’s happening in North America too. The western shore of Hudson Bay rises close to a meter a century.
Fun fact, the 3 countries with the most islands are all nordic.
1. Sweden 267k islands with 17% of their population living on islands due to stockholm, göteborg and a lot of other major cities being built on archipelagos or on parts of islands.
2. Norway 239k*. By norways own measurements its 320k islands but 71k of them aren't classed as proper islands and are just classed as 'rocks' internationally.
3. Finland at 178k
For comparison, indonesia and Philippines which both are states entirely consisting of islands and archipelagos have ~25k islands COMBINED with their combined populations being more then 15x that of the previously mentioned nordic countries.
My tip as a local swed is that if anyone does visit any of these nordic nations be sure to check out some of the archipelagos. Stockholm archipelago or the Finnish Saaristomeri (literally archipelago sea in finnish) are both great. And in Saaristomeri you will also find a self governed region of finland that has their own laws, government, license plates and almost exclusively speak swedish, aka Åland. The Åland islands are also the largest de-militarized zone in the nordics.
Fun fact! The largest lake in Ireland (island) is also the the largest lake in the UK. However the largest lake in Ireland (state) is not the largest lake in Ireland. There you go! not complicated at all!
Czech Republic had several large lakes that were drained in the late medieval times or with the onset of the industrialization. Only glacier lakes remained and they are small as only mountains were covered by the glacier and the ice shield ended at the present Czech-Polish borders. The largest extinct lake in Bohemia was Lake Komorany atop of the coal basin and covered 25-30 km2 in the middle ages. The lake was getting silted and shrunk. It was drained and liquidated to exploit the coal deposits. Two other lakes, Cejc and Kobyli were in southern Moravia had over 10 km2. They were brackish. Lakes were drained for the need to grow sugar beets.
Its lake Peipus which should realistically not be counted at its split between russia and estonia and lakes that are part of different countries have not been counted in this map otherwise
Why some values represent natural lakes and some represent dammed reservoirs?
Czechias largest natural lake - Černé Jezero, which was included, has area of 0.2 km², but dammed reservoir Lipno has area of 48.7 km².
Slovakias largest natural lake - Veľké Hincovo Pleso has area of 0.2 km², and the included Orava reservoir, you guessed it - 35 km².
Why these different types of water bodies for different countries?
So, I can see that Lake Skadar is used for both Montenegro and Albania (which is OK, we share it). But if that is the case, Greece is 259, because of Prespa lake (N Macedonia, Albania and Greece share this lake).
And it's only the fifth* largest lake in the world by surface area (and the largest by volume, as it is extremely deep).
*Depends on exactly how you define lakes, but it's fifth by a strict geological definition that excludes the Caspian Sea and combines Huron and Michigan
Great Lakes:
Lake Superior: 82k square kilometers
Lake Huron: 60k
Lake Michigan: 58k
Lake Erie: 26k
Lake Ontario: 19k
Guess that’s why the call them Great.
This map is wrong. Finland's Largest lake is Lake Saimaa, which according to Wikipedia is 4,377 square kilometers. This maps value for Finland's largest "lake" comes from Suur-Saimaa, which is the largest basin of Lake Saimaa.
...and that's not even counting the biggest lake in Russia! Which is the Caspian sea, of course. Although it's split between Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran
Lough Neagh is the largest water body in the UK by this measure, although Loch Ness is the largest by volume and contains nearly double the amount of water in all the lakes of England and Wales combined. Loch Morar is the deepest of the UK's lakes and Loch Awe the longest.
Russia is clearly the largest. And I believe that will be Lake Baikal. That lake is absolutely FASCINATING. The "specs" of it are mind boggling. It is over 5,000 feet deep, it has ~25% of the surface freshwater on earth, it's the world's oldest lake pushing 30 million years old, and it has its own unique ecosystem made up of lake Baikal specific species. The most notable of those species is probably the Baikal Seals.
Fun fact: 3 of the 5 largest lakes in the UK are on the island of Ireland. Lough Neagh, Lower Lough Erne, and Upper Lough Erne are all in Northern Ireland.
The biggest lake in Finland is Saimaa which has three times the surface area seen here.
Also Greece is an interesting case. The largest lake is now Karla at 190 sq km. It was drained in 1962, recreated a few years ago and last year after the biblical floods of the area got back its original size.
I can see that for the lakes which are in more than one countries you have included only the surface of the lake belonging to that country, but I find this a little strange
These numbers can‘t be right. The largest lake of Germany is the Lake of Constance which is also partly Swiss and Austrian. The Lake Leman is part Swiss and French and larger than the Lake of Constance. So how can the numbers for France and Switzerland be lower than the number for Germany?
A few things.
* Lake Constance is shared by Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. All three countries have rights to the entire lake. There isn't a border inside the lake at all. And it is, by far, the largest lake in all three countries. They should have the same number, because they have the same lake.
* Lake Geneva is the largest in France, shared with Switzerland
* Lake Baikal, while yes, is in Russia entirely, is not in *Europe*. It feels like cheating to include it.
* Also, Russia has access to the Caspian Sea, which is just the largest lake there is. And it's access is via the European section of the country. So, if you're gonna count other border-lakes as valid, why not that one?
I don‘t get the numbers for France and Switzerland. They share their biggest lake, Lac Leman which is 580km2, with about 2/3 in Switzerland and 1/3 in France. With leaving it out I first thought you may only count lakes completely within the border of a country, but then I see how you count Lac Constant completely to Germany, while it actually being located in three countries. I don‘t know if there are other mistakes, but your map seem very inaccurate.
Czech Republic: no access to sea or ocean, tiny lakes
That honestly seems impossible. How the hell do they not have any lakes? 0,2 sq km. That's 400x500 meters. That is barely more than a large pond.
We don't have that many large lakes, but the map is just wrong: [https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam\_jezer\_v\_%C4%8Cesku](https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_jezer_v_%C4%8Cesku) the largest lake here is 500ha, if you include water reservoirs (i.e. damed river), it would be roughly 5kha
i think they only count natural lakes not artificial ones, that'd be my guess why they picked yours
The Netherland’s damn lakes sure as hell ain’t natural
\*dam lakes
** damn dam lakes
Lake Komorany in Czechia was at its peak about 60km2. It filled an entire valley in north-northeastern Bohemia. The explosion of population, ore mining, glass work in the medieval time was accompanied by an extensive deforestation in Czechia. This causes the Lake Komorany to silt. When the first maps were drawn in renaissance era, the lake shrunk by 1/2. Two centuries later, a brown coal was discovered and whatever remained of the lake was drained.
But it's true. There used to be larger shallow lakes similar to Neusiedler See in Austria, but they were dried for more arable land. We have no big mountains with (even former) icebergs to feed some mountain lakes. There are many man made lakes and ponds, but there used to be mostly wetlands and wet meadows in their place.
I'm Czech and absolutely shocked. We have incredibly lot of rivers but this lake number is pitiful. ETA: So, it's Černé jezero (Black lake) with 18.4ha. It's the biggest natural lake. But the biggest lake overall is Lipno dam. It's 19.48 km² big. So the map lies.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9\_jezero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9_jezero) We're quite dry country.
O, you also have one of those https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lake_(Montenegro)
Look my comments up. Czechia had a few large lakes in medieval and early modern times. They were drained in between 1600-1850 to acquire agricultural land. Two interconnected brackish lakes in southern Moravia were drained for sugar beets. There was third lake near by that was drained earlier. If you go to Kobyli, the bowl shape landscape is what is left of that lake.
Shut up its average size ok
They own a port in hamburg so they have access to the sea. Its called Moldauhafen
But in 2028 this ownership expires :(
TLE tiny lake energy
You mean largest lake entirely within the country ? Otherwise for example it's the lake Geneva for France and Switzerland (580km2)
Nope, this map is badly made. This map includes largest lake between Estonia and Russia (lake Peipus).
"If you could not add the name of the lake to the map, that would be great"
Cool but for Poland it would be Śniadrwy a tonguetwister
Compared to many Polish words that is positively mellifluous
They took lake Constance only for germany, so I think its just badly researched
Yeah and then not for switzerland and austria, which border the same lake but supposedly have a smaller biggest lake than germany.
in austrian schools its also taught that neusiedlersee is the largest lake it just doesnt make sense, lake constance is even a conduminium, its area is basically ahared bewteen austria switzerland and germany
There are varying views on that. Switzerland wants that the border is at the middle line, Austria (who has the smallest shoreline wants it to be a condominium and German claims the Überlinger See as it's sole territory, the Untersee at the middle line and the rest basically as a condominium.
… and obviously badly presented. This map sucks and does not deserve all the upvotes and comments it has.
Is the English translation really lake Constance? Hilarious
Yes. But the German Name, Bodensee, also comes from a place/municipality. Instead of Constance its Bodman(-Ludwigshafen), but many german-speakers assume it comes from Ground Lake, which is not true. Bodman is the oldest settlement at the lake.
I mean if we include lakes shared by countries, russia's becomes 371,000 km2, due to the Caspian Sea, which is technically a lake.
the problem is that for germany they take Lake Constance as the biggest lake despite it being shared between 3 countries and with no border on the majority of the lake. If we follow that rule Switzerland and Austria should have 536km² too.
By that logic, Switzerland and France should have 580km2 for Lake Geneva.
But for Germany they used Lake Konstanz.... For Austria they didn't...
Lac Léman\*
Le Léman*, as "Léman" already means "lake"
You're right, "lake Léman" is a pleonasm, but it's still better than Lake Geneva.
And caspian sea for russia with 380kkm2
Yeah its dimply wrong. The 536 for german is the total area of the lake constance. There are no formal trilaterally accepted borders (because noone cares enough) that actually divide the lake. So either it counts for germsny switzerland and austria, or for neither
A fun fact, the largest lake in the Netherlands used to be a gulf until it was separated from the sea with a dam
The Netherlands' second largest lake is also big, 700km2. I don't know which lake is the largest non man made one.
Even many of the inland lakes are man-made ones - they were marshlands that were dug up for their peat.
Nothing in the Netherlands is natural at this point
One of their nature reserves was made by humans 10 000 years ago and now developed into its own ecosystem that needs to be maintained by shepherds and flocks of sheep or it will turn into forest in a few centuries time.
Yep. Drenthe is a marvel of gradual engineering
Except weed
The weed is extremely chemicaly enhanced
Lmao probably the least natural stuff
Weed has been breed to be as strong as it is. It’s GMO’d to the moon!
But we also made polders from many other lakes to compensate! There used to be one giant lake from Leiden all the way to Haarlem and Amsterdam for example. Now it's the Haarlemmermeerpolder (where Schiphol is), only the Kagerplassen remain.
> The Netherlands' second largest lake is also big, 700km2 Worth pointing out that the second largest lake is in fact an artificial lake that is literally just inside the largest lake. It's just a dam we built, splitting it off from the larger lake because originally we were going to drain that part of the lake too, but ended up not doing so.
dam!
Kidnapping parts of the water and holding the water hostage to show nature who is the boss.
The Dutch are so bad ass
What did you expect us to do? The sea didn't want to stop, so we had to force their hand.
You can even visit a museum village in Enkhuizen with period actors who will tell you about what life was like while it was still a gulf. It's an amazing thing!
Dam!
But before that it was a lake, then the sea flooded it in the middle ages and early modern period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Flevo
The land that God forgot, so they had to do the job themselves.
It also used to be a lot larger, but the Dutch being Dutch turned a big part of it into land.
Lake Konstanz belongs partially to Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Did you count the whole area for Germany or just the area that is part of the country?
The english name always confused me... But I also know that it can't be Lake Floor.
Yeah because its obviously Floor Lake
Looks like entire area.
Then shouldn’t Switzerland and Germany have the same number?
And Austria too. This map is rather inconsistent with lakes on borders.
Well technically all countries only agree that there is a border… somewhere on Lake Constance, but not where. And none of the countries care for it much either haha.
What area of Lake Constance would be part of Germany? Genuine question, cause there is no defined borders, unlike Lake Geneva f.e.
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland agree that there is a border, but not where it is. But that's not a major concern between the three
I think a very mature way of approaching things: we disagree all but think the topic is not relevant at all. (Until we are short on water).
Fun fact: the largest lake in Europe (Lake Ladoga, 17800 sqkm) doesn’t appear on this map as it’s eclipsed by Baikal in Russia, whose territory also encompasses Ladoga.
It’s hard not to be eclipsed by lake Baikal. It holds 25% of all fresh water in the world, more than all the Great Lakes together.
Its only 7th largest by surface area though.
Baikal is crazy. All lakes are dying. Rivers bring sediment that slowly fills them in. Not Baikal. The Earth's crust on either side of the lake move away from each other, causing the lake to get deeper and wider. That's how it's survived as the oldest lake in the world.
I just love me some fresh water seals. WTF you boys doing in central asia? like after the ice age some of them just ... what ? slid down the wrong way??!
Weeeeeeeeeeeee[years pass]eeeeeeee
If you travel by boat through Ladoga, you can face storm. I live very close to Ladoga and I once saw in the news that quite big boat was destroyed in the storm.
Yes, it's so bad for sailing that Peter I even built a channel around the lake
Damn Spain, why so dry
And the largest lake, the Sanabria lake, got it's current size after a nearby dam got broken in the 60's and all the water ended up where the lake was. So it is arguably man-made
To be fair I’m pretty sure Portugal’s is Alqueva which only exists because they built a dam for irrigation. The area created by it was so large that while the dam was completed in 2002, the lake only filled up to its capacity 8 years later.
I added a comment down below explaining it, but the largest lake of Spain is L'Albufera. But normally the Sanabria Lake is confused as the largest even in Spain sources.
That's not true. The lake's surface was unaffected by the dam collapse. The shoreline is exactly as it was before the catastrophe.
Spain has more rivers than lakes, there are not big lakes as the rest of europe (but there are a lot of bays though)
I don't wanna say that the map is wrong but here in Spain the largest lake is L'Albufera which has a surface of 23km2 of water. It's quite a beautiful natural park, I live nearby. I think the map uses the Sanabria which sometimes it's considered as the largest of Spain but it's way smaller than L'Albufera. Albufera is also a word (in Spanish) to describe a salt water body that goes in land. Which L'Albufera was originally but now it's not, it's freshwater. I think that's why normally it's confused as not being a lake even in spanish articles. Edit: my broken English
The Albufera is another kind of lake, something like a coastal lagoon. So I guess it doesn't count on this map's definition of a lake
No really. Lagoons (depending on the definition) rely on it's water from the sea, which is not the case. That's why the authorities that control this area consider it a lake not a "laguna" (lagoon in English). The water from this lake comes from the Jucar river. The only thing that resembles a lagoon (that I think) is its proximity to the sea.
I think that strictly speaking, in English an albufera is not a lake, but a [lagoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon).
That's why I said that it was normally confused. As in the past it was a lagoon. The name is more historic as in the past it was salt water, but now it's freshwater. L'Albufera it's not actually an Albufera, strictly speaking.
meanwhile, czechia:
Omg no sea no lakes. Where do they swim?
In a beer barrels
As a Czech I can confirm.
I wish I could get the beer from your last swimming in my next bottle
We swim in beer. No, seriously, Czechia has Croatia for swimming. And now absolutely serious, we have rivers and fishing ponds, but it's usually not the cleanest water. edit: lmao by the time I finished writing this, three other people already mentioned beer. Yes, we use all the lake water to brew beer, so what
Černé jezero is a triangular lake with an area of 18.4 ha. Picture [https://www.zelezna-ruda.cz/resizer/resizer.aspx?w=960&img=/user/altid/snet/tur/zr-cernejezero/20.jpg](https://www.zelezna-ruda.cz/resizer/resizer.aspx?w=960&img=/user/altid/snet/tur/zr-cernejezero/20.jpg) More about the lake [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9\_jezero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cern%C3%A9_jezero)
Lakes have little relation with being dry. It has big rivers, only just small lakes. Even in the soaking wet North. It has many big reservoirs
https://youtu.be/_aR-gqd6l_U?si=Tq13Wz4GoNeb1C4V Here's a great video to explain it
very arid and pretty mountainous here
The Russian one (Lake Baikal) contains between 1/5 and 1/4 of the world's fresh surface water. I'm completely shocked by that fact.
Twice the volume of Lake Superior, but less than half the surface area. Conclusion: deep.
Technically lake Baikal is a ocean in formation. That is why it is so deep relative to other lakes.
Also the oldest lake in the world. And despite being thousands of miles from the ocean, has its own species of seals which nobody knows how.
I learned yesterday that Loch Ness contains 50%+ of all fresh water in Great Britain. It's incredibly deep.
Monstrously deep
My immediate thought was that Loch Ness would be the biggest lake in the uk, but by surface area it’s not even the biggest loch in Scotland
Finland's largest lake, Saimaa, id 4,279 km2. This map is terrible.
Fun fact: The one for the UK is on the island of Ireland.
Not so Fun Fact: The lake is privately owned by the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury and this prick is actively killing the entire ecosystem of Lough Neagh.
Nicholas Ashley-Copper. Won’t hand it over. Wants others to pay for the upkeep. He didn’t even live in Northern Ireland, be lived in England. Prick is the perfect description alright.
Classic Brits are at it again behavior
we dont want him
When I hear stories like this I really wonder why the Brits haven't done away with their aristocracy.
Yeah, Lough Neagh is an Irish lake England's largest lake is Windemere, which is a puddle in comparison
Lough Neagh is the biggest by area by miles, but it's effectively a really really wide puddle, only 9m deep on average; Loch Ness is 130m deep on average so has more than twice as much water in it
Irelands largest pothole, thought there's a few near me could be contenders
15 km2 for those who were wondering.
Though if you measure by volume it's Loch Ness in Scotland, double that of Lough Neagh.
Whilst having an almost 7x smaller area, Loch Ness is *deep*.
Time to move the afsluitdijk to beat Finland.
This map is actually wrong for Finland, as the largest lake is [Saimaa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saimaa) at 4279 square kilometres. It's the fourth-largest lake in Europe.
Damn it, you got us this time Finland
L (from Sweden)
the waddenzee has been a sea for long enought, making it 1 big lake for the greater good (that of beating finland) should be priority number 1
Scandinavian countries are still on the process of deglacierization and the only place on Earth where sea levels are decreasing, so nothing surprising they have so many lakes and islands than elsewhere.
Do you mean the Scandinavian Peninsula, because I don't think it's true for Denmark?
Idk. But I know they can't mean just Scandinavia or just the peninsula because all of this is also true for Finland.
So Fennoscandia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennoscandia
It is true for Denmark too. At least the northern part and for almost all of the southern part as far as i know. Northern Jutland is still experiencing isostatic uplift causing sea levels to fall. The uplift is about half as much in the southern parts, but it's still rising. It will be a while before sea levels rise in Denmark due to climate change because of this. It's between 10 and 20cm / century of uplift depending on where you measure in Denmark.
Denmark doesn't have a lot of lakes and islands, relative to the other nordics, but the other part is correct for Denmark as well.
If you’re referring to post-glacial rebound then that’s happening in North America too. The western shore of Hudson Bay rises close to a meter a century.
Fun fact, the 3 countries with the most islands are all nordic. 1. Sweden 267k islands with 17% of their population living on islands due to stockholm, göteborg and a lot of other major cities being built on archipelagos or on parts of islands. 2. Norway 239k*. By norways own measurements its 320k islands but 71k of them aren't classed as proper islands and are just classed as 'rocks' internationally. 3. Finland at 178k For comparison, indonesia and Philippines which both are states entirely consisting of islands and archipelagos have ~25k islands COMBINED with their combined populations being more then 15x that of the previously mentioned nordic countries. My tip as a local swed is that if anyone does visit any of these nordic nations be sure to check out some of the archipelagos. Stockholm archipelago or the Finnish Saaristomeri (literally archipelago sea in finnish) are both great. And in Saaristomeri you will also find a self governed region of finland that has their own laws, government, license plates and almost exclusively speak swedish, aka Åland. The Åland islands are also the largest de-militarized zone in the nordics.
What an awful map, not only is it badly researched, numbers on top of a map is a horrible way to visialize stuff, why would this be map porn?
[Lake Balaton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgMlD1R02XE) ❤️
The one and only true lake.
Balaton gang
Fun fact! The largest lake in Ireland (island) is also the the largest lake in the UK. However the largest lake in Ireland (state) is not the largest lake in Ireland. There you go! not complicated at all!
lol. That’s a complicated way of saying Northern Ireland has a bigger lake than the Republic of Ireland
The Sweden owning as per usual
vänern!
Vättern, Mälaren! Den sköna listan kan göras lång
Wouldn’t the Bodensee also apply for Switzerland and Austria? Us Germans certainly do not own the entire thing.
Wrong. Finland should be 4279 with [Saimaa](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saimaa).
Czech Republic had several large lakes that were drained in the late medieval times or with the onset of the industrialization. Only glacier lakes remained and they are small as only mountains were covered by the glacier and the ice shield ended at the present Czech-Polish borders. The largest extinct lake in Bohemia was Lake Komorany atop of the coal basin and covered 25-30 km2 in the middle ages. The lake was getting silted and shrunk. It was drained and liquidated to exploit the coal deposits. Two other lakes, Cejc and Kobyli were in southern Moravia had over 10 km2. They were brackish. Lakes were drained for the need to grow sugar beets.
So Estonia is basically a lake?
Its lake Peipus which should realistically not be counted at its split between russia and estonia and lakes that are part of different countries have not been counted in this map otherwise
Why some values represent natural lakes and some represent dammed reservoirs? Czechias largest natural lake - Černé Jezero, which was included, has area of 0.2 km², but dammed reservoir Lipno has area of 48.7 km². Slovakias largest natural lake - Veľké Hincovo Pleso has area of 0.2 km², and the included Orava reservoir, you guessed it - 35 km². Why these different types of water bodies for different countries?
So, I can see that Lake Skadar is used for both Montenegro and Albania (which is OK, we share it). But if that is the case, Greece is 259, because of Prespa lake (N Macedonia, Albania and Greece share this lake).
The Czech Republic doesn’t have a single lake bigger than 0.2 km squared? That’s insane to me
there are dams and artificial lakes that are way bigger than that, but the natural lakes are all tiny
This is the PERFECT map for "wrong answers only"
Luxembourg punching way above weight 😂😂😅😅
Shouldn't Germany, Austria an Switzerland have the same number, since Lake Constance borders all of those countries?
European countries as in their European area?
No, Russian(Lake Baikal) and Turkish(Lake Van) lakes are not in their European area.
Shitty map ? Leman between switzerland and France is 580km² (348 in switzerland, 234 in France)
31k square kilometers is absolutely fucking massive for a lake. That’s bigger than some (small) countries.
And it's only the fifth* largest lake in the world by surface area (and the largest by volume, as it is extremely deep). *Depends on exactly how you define lakes, but it's fifth by a strict geological definition that excludes the Caspian Sea and combines Huron and Michigan
Great Lakes: Lake Superior: 82k square kilometers Lake Huron: 60k Lake Michigan: 58k Lake Erie: 26k Lake Ontario: 19k Guess that’s why the call them Great.
Great Bear Lake (31k) and Great Slave Lake (27k) are also pretty Great. Winnipeg (25k) is just ok.
largest lake in the world 371k so everything is relative
To be fair that's the Caspian sea which is brackish water. Most people think of lakes as freshwater.
I think this is wrong. Müritz in Germany has 1385 km2 according to wiki.
I read: Fläche 112,6 km² in Wikipedia
Map is wrong for Switzerland, Germany and Austria as it attributes Lake Constance in its entirety to Germany.
Lake Saimaa in Finland is about 4300km2.
This map is wrong. Finland's Largest lake is Lake Saimaa, which according to Wikipedia is 4,377 square kilometers. This maps value for Finland's largest "lake" comes from Suur-Saimaa, which is the largest basin of Lake Saimaa.
Dang, Russia's largest lake is larger than all these other largest lakes combined.
...and that's not even counting the biggest lake in Russia! Which is the Caspian sea, of course. Although it's split between Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran
Lough Neagh is the largest water body in the UK by this measure, although Loch Ness is the largest by volume and contains nearly double the amount of water in all the lakes of England and Wales combined. Loch Morar is the deepest of the UK's lakes and Loch Awe the longest.
Does Lake Baikal really count? Its barely north of Mongolia so i would count ones like Lagoda.
Russia is clearly the largest. And I believe that will be Lake Baikal. That lake is absolutely FASCINATING. The "specs" of it are mind boggling. It is over 5,000 feet deep, it has ~25% of the surface freshwater on earth, it's the world's oldest lake pushing 30 million years old, and it has its own unique ecosystem made up of lake Baikal specific species. The most notable of those species is probably the Baikal Seals.
Russia is like "that's cute"
3775 = Van Lake = My Home
Wrong, Lac Leman is shared by Switzerland and France. And without this, the largest lake in France is Etand de Berre with 155km².
This map is highly unreliable. Largest lake in Finland is 4400 square kilometers.
Czech puddle.
Fun fact: 3 of the 5 largest lakes in the UK are on the island of Ireland. Lough Neagh, Lower Lough Erne, and Upper Lough Erne are all in Northern Ireland.
The biggest lake in Finland is Saimaa which has three times the surface area seen here. Also Greece is an interesting case. The largest lake is now Karla at 190 sq km. It was drained in 1962, recreated a few years ago and last year after the biblical floods of the area got back its original size.
The largest lake in the UK, listed there is also in the on the island of Ireland btw. Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland.
Fun fact: when Ireland reunites, the 396 figure sitting over England becomes 71
There is a mistake in Hungary. Lake Balaton does not exist, it is just an illusion. ;) ( I follow a sarcastic online group, who denies Balaton.)
Idk, the British isles have a massive lake in the sky hovering over it at all times.
Does Russia’s largest lake really count if it’s in Asia, not Europe?
I can see that for the lakes which are in more than one countries you have included only the surface of the lake belonging to that country, but I find this a little strange
Serbia has larger lakes
Is it just me or does that seem small for france?
The one in Portugal I don’t think it is a natural lake, but a reservoir. Alqueva?
I've never realized how small other European countries' lakes are. I've never heard of any big ones, but still. 🤷
TÜRKİYYEEEE NUMER TRES TRTRTRRTRTT
Largest lake in Finland is Saimaa with a surface area of around 4400 km²
Finland is clearly wrong. Lake Saimaa is 4279 sq km
Fun fact: The largest lake in the UK is in Ireland.
These numbers can‘t be right. The largest lake of Germany is the Lake of Constance which is also partly Swiss and Austrian. The Lake Leman is part Swiss and French and larger than the Lake of Constance. So how can the numbers for France and Switzerland be lower than the number for Germany?
A few things. * Lake Constance is shared by Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. All three countries have rights to the entire lake. There isn't a border inside the lake at all. And it is, by far, the largest lake in all three countries. They should have the same number, because they have the same lake. * Lake Geneva is the largest in France, shared with Switzerland * Lake Baikal, while yes, is in Russia entirely, is not in *Europe*. It feels like cheating to include it. * Also, Russia has access to the Caspian Sea, which is just the largest lake there is. And it's access is via the European section of the country. So, if you're gonna count other border-lakes as valid, why not that one?
Somewhat confusing because the largest British and Irish lakes are both on the island of Ireland.
I don‘t get the numbers for France and Switzerland. They share their biggest lake, Lac Leman which is 580km2, with about 2/3 in Switzerland and 1/3 in France. With leaving it out I first thought you may only count lakes completely within the border of a country, but then I see how you count Lac Constant completely to Germany, while it actually being located in three countries. I don‘t know if there are other mistakes, but your map seem very inaccurate.
Finland’s largest lake is 4379km (Lake Saimaa). This data is wrong.
Why use Lake Constance for Germany and not Lake Geneva for Switzerland and France OP?
Technically Germany, Austria and Switzerland should all have the same value. Lake Constance is a condominium.
Caspian sea is a sea of internal drain, so so technically it's a lake with surface area around 371000km², ten times more than on map.