Largest By Continent
The largest lakes (surface area) by continent are:
- Australia – Lake Eyre (salt lake)
- Africa – Lake Victoria, also the third-largest freshwater lake on Earth. It is one of the Great Lakes of Africa.
- Antarctica – Lake Vostok (subglacial)
- Asia – Lake Baikal (if the Caspian Sea is considered a lake, it is the largest in Eurasia, but is divided between the two geographic continents)
- Oceania – Lake Eyre when filled; the largest permanent (and freshwater) lake in Oceania is Lake Taupo.
- Europe – Lake Ladoga, followed by Lake Onega, both located in northwestern Russia.
- North America – Lake Michigan-Huron, which is hydrologically a single lake. However, lakes Huron and Michigan are usually considered separate lakes, in which case Lake Superior would be the largest.
- South America – Lake Titicaca, which is also the highest navigable body of water on Earth at 3,821 m above sea level. The much larger Lake Maracaibo is considered by some to be the second-oldest lake on Earth, but since it lies at sea level and nowadays is a contiguous body of water with the sea, others consider that it has turned into a bay.
Read more about this topic: Lake, Notable Lakes
Famous quotes containing the words largest and/or continent:
“The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Our moat around us is no more a moat,
Our continent no more a moated castle.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)