How deep is Lake Baikal at its deepest point?

Lake Baikal reaches a maximum depth of 1,642 metres. Located in southern Siberia, Russia, it is the world’s deepest lake and the largest freshwater lake by volume. Its great depth results from the active Baikal Rift Zone, where Earth’s crust is gradually pulling apart.

Baikal is also exceptionally old, with estimates commonly placing its age at about 25 million years. It holds roughly 20 percent of the planet’s unfrozen surface freshwater, a remarkable amount for a single lake. The lake is about 636 kilometres long and contains more than 300 rivers and streams flowing into it, while the Angara River is its principal outlet.

Its isolation has produced many distinctive species. The Baikal seal, or nerpa, is the world’s only exclusively freshwater seal. More than half of Baikal’s species are endemic, meaning they occur nowhere else.

Lake Tanganyika is also extremely deep, but Baikal is deeper. Depth figures describe the deepest measured basin, not the average depth across the entire lake.