How Many Lakes Are in the World? 31 Verified Statistics (2026)

There are 1.42 million lakes in the world. There are also 117 million. Both figures come from peer reviewed research, and neither of them is wrong.

The gap is not a disagreement about the planet. It is a disagreement about how small a body of water has to be before it stops being a lake, and every number you have ever read about global lakes hides that decision somewhere.

Below are 31 figures from five studies, each with the threshold it was measured at. Read the thresholds and the contradictions disappear.

How many lakes there are

1.42 million lakes are mapped individually

The HydroLAKES database holds 1.42 million separate polygons for natural lakes with a surface area of at least 10 hectares, plus reservoirs on top of that. These are not estimates. Each one is a mapped outline, which makes this the most conservative and the most solid of the global counts.¹

21.2 million lakes are at least 1 hectare

Extending the same work down one size class by statistical model gives 21.2 million natural lakes of at least 1 hectare. Dropping the threshold by a factor of ten multiplies the count by fifteen, which is the whole problem with the question in one line.²

Satellite imagery finds about 117 million

The GLOWABO database, built from high resolution satellite imagery, contains geographic and morphometric information for roughly 117 million lakes larger than 0.002 square kilometres, which is 0.2 hectares. This is the number most often quoted as the answer, usually without the threshold attached.³

A different method gives 64 million

Working upward from complete geospatial data for the United States, a 2012 study put the global figure at around 64 million water bodies larger than 0.001 square kilometres. That threshold is smaller than the one behind the 117 million figure, and the count is smaller too, which tells you the two studies disagree about method rather than about size.⁴

The highest published estimate was 304 million

A 2006 model based on the Pareto distribution concluded that the global extent of natural lakes was twice as large as previously known, at 304 million lakes covering 4.2 million square kilometres. It stood as the headline figure for years and has since been revised downwards by both of the satellite based studies.⁵

Every smaller size class holds about ten times more lakes

Lake sizes follow a near scale invariant pattern: moving one logarithmic step down in surface area multiplies the number of lakes by roughly ten, at least down to 0.1 square kilometres. That single regularity explains why the published totals span two orders of magnitude.⁶

The disagreement is about extrapolation, not measurement

The 2012 study argues that the Pareto distribution cannot describe the lake size relationship across the whole spectrum, and that extrapolating it downwards has probably overestimated the number of small lakes in the world. That criticism is the reason the highest figure fell from 304 million to 117 and then 64.⁷⁵

How much of the planet they cover

Lakes of 10 hectares and up cover 1.8 percent of land

The 1.42 million mapped natural lakes have a combined surface area of 2.67 million square kilometres, which is 1.8 percent of the global land area. Large human made reservoirs add another 0.26 million square kilometres, or 0.2 percent.⁸

At 1 hectare the figure rises to 2.2 percent

Including everything down to 1 hectare gives 3.23 million square kilometres of natural lake surface, 2.2 percent of the land area. Half a million extra square kilometres appear purely from counting smaller water.⁹

The satellite count reaches 3.7 percent

GLOWABO puts the combined surface area of its 117 million lakes at about 5 million square kilometres, which it gives as 3.7 percent of the Earth non-glaciated land area. Between this and the 1.8 percent above sits nothing but a definition.¹⁰

With ponds and farm dams, over 3 percent of land is water

The 2006 study reached about 4.6 million square kilometres of continental land surface covered by water once lakes, ponds and impoundments are added together, which it summarised as more than 3 percent. Low technology farm impoundments alone accounted for well over 77,000 square kilometres.¹¹

Big lakes hold the area, small lakes hold the count

The satellite work found that large and intermediate lakes dominate total lake surface area, and that small water bodies, while overwhelmingly the most numerous, are not numerous enough to dominate area as earlier extrapolations had suggested. Counting lakes and measuring lake water are two different exercises.¹²⁴

Lake shoreline is four times the ocean coastline

The shorelines of all mapped natural lakes run to 7.2 million kilometres, with another 0.5 million for large reservoirs. The global ocean coastline measures 1.6 million kilometres at a comparable map scale. There is roughly four times as much lake edge on this planet as sea edge, and that is before counting anything under 10 hectares.¹³

How much water they hold

Natural lakes hold 181,900 cubic kilometres of water

The mapped natural lakes contain 181.9 thousand cubic kilometres of water, which is 0.8 percent of all non-frozen terrestrial water and equivalent to 1.7 percent of the predominantly fresh groundwater on Earth. Adding large reservoirs brings the total to 187.9 thousand cubic kilometres.¹⁴

Lakes hold 87 percent of liquid surface fresh water

Of the fresh water sitting on the surface of the planet in liquid form, lakes hold 87 percent. Rivers, which get far more attention in water policy, hold a small fraction of what lakes do.¹⁵

The Caspian Sea alone holds 40.2 percent

Of all the water in the world lakes and reservoirs, 40.2 percent sits in the Caspian Sea. It is usually left out of lake conversations because of its name and its salinity, and leaving it out changes every other percentage on this page.¹⁶

Five bodies of water hold 73 percent

The next four largest lakes after the Caspian hold a further 33.2 percent. Five bodies of water therefore account for 73.4 percent of all lake and reservoir water on Earth, and the remaining million and a half lakes share what is left.¹⁷

Every reservoir on Earth is 3.2 percent of the total

Total reservoir storage, every large dam impoundment on the planet combined, represents 3.2 percent of the water held in lakes and reservoirs. Human water engineering is visible on maps and marginal in volume.¹⁸

Spread flat, lake water would be 1.26 metres deep

Poured evenly over the world landmass, the water in lakes and reservoirs would form a layer about 1.26 metres deep, which is 1.7 times the amount of precipitation falling on land in a year.¹⁹

The average lake is 3.9 metres deep, and 64.2 metres deep

Averaging the depth of every lake gives 3.9 metres, because most lakes are small and shallow. Dividing total volume by total area instead gives an area weighted mean depth of 64.2 metres. Both are correct, and the gap between them is the single best illustration of how lake statistics mislead.²⁰

How old the water is

The average lake turns over in 1,834 days

Mean hydraulic residence time across all mapped natural lakes is 1,834 days, about five years. The median is 456 days, well under half of that, because the distribution is dominated by small lakes that flush quickly.²¹

The average molecule of lake water is 255 years old

Weighting residence times by volume rather than by lake gives an average age for all lake water on Earth of 255 years. The figure is dominated by a handful of enormous lakes, which is exactly what makes it interesting: most lake water on this planet has been sitting still since before most countries existed.²²

Lake Baikal holds its water for 375 years

The model puts the residence time of Lake Baikal at 375 years against a reported value of 321. Large lakes in dry catchments sit at this end of the range, while lakes inside a river channel can flush in days.²³¹

Where the lakes are

Almost every lake district was made by ice

Areas of high lake density lie almost entirely within the extent of the last glacial maximum, in northern Canada and Scandinavia and parts of Alaska and Russia. Smaller concentrations appear in the alpine zones of the Andes, Rockies and Himalayas, in the African Rift Valley, and in floodplains such as the Amazon basin and coastal China.²⁴

The contiguous United States has 3.5 million lakes

Complete geospatial data give 3.5 million lakes and reservoirs larger than 0.001 square kilometres in the contiguous United States, excluding the Great Lakes, with a combined surface area of 131,000 square kilometres.²⁵

Alaska adds between 1 and 2.5 million more

The same study found incomplete data for Alaska suggesting the state holds 1 to 2.5 million lakes larger than 0.001 square kilometres, covering over 50,000 square kilometres. Alaska on its own has more lake surface than a third of the lower 48 combined.²⁶²

The United States holds roughly a twelfth of the world lakes

Setting 4.5 to 6 million American lakes against the 64 million global figure from the same study puts the United States at 7 to 9 percent of the world total. This is our own arithmetic on that study two figures, not a published statistic, and it only holds at the 0.001 square kilometre threshold both were measured at.²⁷²

No country by country census exists

There is no global dataset that counts lakes nation by nation at a consistent threshold, which is why claims such as one country holding more lakes than the rest of the world combined cannot be checked and should not be repeated. What can be said is that against a global figure of 64 or 117 million, no single country comes close to half.²⁸³

What is changing

53 percent of the largest lakes are losing water

Three decades of satellite observation of the 1,972 largest lakes on Earth found statistically significant declines in stored water in 53 percent of them between 1992 and 2020. This is the clearest measured trend in global limnology, and it runs one way.²⁹

A quarter of humanity lives beside a drying lake

The same study estimates that roughly one quarter of the world population lives in the basin of a lake that is losing water. Lake decline is not a remote wilderness problem.³⁰¹

Natural lakes and reservoirs are shrinking for different reasons

In natural lakes the loss is attributed largely to climate warming, rising evaporative demand and human water consumption. In reservoirs the dominant cause is sedimentation, which is to say they are filling up with soil rather than running out of water. The two need different responses and are usually reported as one number.³¹¹

Frequently asked questions

Sources

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2. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
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4. McDonald et al., The regional abundance and size distribution of lakes and reservoirs in the United States, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
5. Downing et al., The global abundance and size distribution of lakes, ponds, and impoundments, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
6. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
7. McDonald et al., The regional abundance and size distribution of lakes and reservoirs in the United States, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
8. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
9. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
10. Verpoorter et al., A global inventory of lakes based on high-resolution satellite imagery, Geophysical Research Letters (agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
11. Downing et al., The global abundance and size distribution of lakes, ponds, and impoundments, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
12. Verpoorter et al., A global inventory of lakes based on high-resolution satellite imagery, Geophysical Research Letters (agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
13. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
14. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
15. Yao et al., Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage, Science (science.org)
16. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
17. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
18. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
19. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
20. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
21. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
22. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
23. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
24. Messager et al., Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes, Nature Communications (nature.com)
25. McDonald et al., The regional abundance and size distribution of lakes and reservoirs in the United States, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
26. McDonald et al., The regional abundance and size distribution of lakes and reservoirs in the United States, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
27. McDonald et al., The regional abundance and size distribution of lakes and reservoirs in the United States, Limnology and Oceanography (aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
28. Verpoorter et al., A global inventory of lakes based on high-resolution satellite imagery, Geophysical Research Letters (agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
29. Yao et al., Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage, Science (science.org)
30. Yao et al., Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage, Science (science.org)
31. Yao et al., Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage, Science (science.org)