Largest lakes & reservoirs in African Great Lakes by water volume
The estimated volume of water that a lake contains is measured at the lake’s normal elevation. By this measure, the world’s largest freshwater lake is Siberia’s Lake Baikal.Water Volume can be measured in acre-feet, in cubic miles, or in cubic kilometers. One acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre (43,560 square feet) to a depth of one foot. One cubic mile equals 3,379,200 acre-feet. One cubic kilometer equals 810,713 acre-feet. 1 acre-foot is equal to 325,851 US gallons. Siberia’s Lake Baikal contains about 6,276,367,740,000,000 gallons of freshwater – nearly 1 million gallons for every living person on earth.
The other – and more widely used – measure of a lake’s size is the lake’s surface acreage. By that measure, the world’s largest freshwater lake is North America’s Lake Superior.
Note: In the United States, an acre foot is a unit of volume used to refer to large-scale bodies of water. It is defined by the volume of water needed to cover 1 acre of surface area to a depth of 1 foot.
You can find many of the the world’s largest lakes (by water volume) on LakeLubbers. Note: For some lakes, the water volume data is unknown or does not apply, so you may see fewer lakes than the total 5 articles we have published for African Great Lakes lakes.
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Below are lakes within African Great Lakes > Compared by water volume. This list does not represent all lakes in African Great Lakes, only the 5 African Great Lakes lake articles we have published on the LakeLubbers website.
Lake name  |
Water vol. in ac-ft |
Lake description |
|---|---|---|
| Lake Tanganyika, African Great Lakes (African Great Lakes, Burundi, Congo (DRC), Kigoma Region, Tanzania, Rukwa Region, Tanzania, Tanzania, Zambia) |
14,430,694,800 ac-ft | Located in the Western Great Rift Valley of Africa, the crystal clear water of Lake Tanganyika reaches across four countries – Burundi, Zambia, Democr… |
| Lake Malawi, African Great Lakes (African Great Lakes, Iringa Region, Tanzania, Malawi, Manda Wilderness Region, Mozambique, Mbeya Region, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ruvuma Region, Tanzania, Tanzania, The Lakeshore Region, Malawi) |
6,809,990,827 ac-ft | (Also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Nyassa, Lake Niassa, Lago Niassa) Located in the East African Rift Valley system between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, Lake Malawi — also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Nyassa, Lake Nia… |
| Lake Victoria, African Great Lakes (African Great Lakes, Central Uganda, Kagera Region, Tanzania, Kenya, Mara Region, Tanzania, Mwanza Region, Tanzania, Nyanza Region, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Western Region, Kenya) |
2,229,461,280 ac-ft | (Also known as Victoria Nyanza, Victoria Ukerewe, Victoria Nalubaale) Lake Victoria — also known as Victoria Nyanza, Ukerewe, and Nalubaale — rakes in the superlatives: it is the largest lake on the African continent b… |
| Lake Kivu (African Great Lakes, Congo (DRC), Rwanda) |
445,892,257 ac-ft | (Also known as Lac Kivu) Lake Kivu is one of the youngest of the African Great Lakes. Located in the Rift Valley, Lake Kivu is thought to be only 15,000 years old. Forming par… |