What is the lowest point on land in the world?

The lowest point on land in the world is the Dead Sea. Its shoreline lies hundreds of metres below mean sea level, making it Earth’s lowest exposed land elevation.

The Dead Sea is a landlocked, hypersaline lake in the Jordan Rift Valley, bordered by Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. The lake has no outlet; water leaves mainly through evaporation, concentrating dissolved minerals and producing unusually buoyant water.

The exact elevation changes because the lake is shrinking. Its surface was about 390 metres below sea level in 1970 and has fallen substantially since then as inflows from the Jordan River were reduced. This recession also exposes new shoreline and creates sinkholes.

A common mix-up is the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest point beneath the ocean, not the lowest point on land. Another distinction is Antarctica’s Denman Glacier bedrock, which lies lower but is buried beneath ice; the Dead Sea is the conventional answer for the lowest exposed land.