What is the world’s deepest lake by measured depth?

Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest lake by measured depth.

Located in southern Siberia, Russia, it reaches a maximum depth of 1,642 meters. Baikal is also the world’s oldest existing freshwater lake, with an estimated age of about 25 million years, and it contains roughly 20 percent of the planet’s unfrozen surface freshwater.

The lake formed in an active continental rift zone, where tectonic plates are pulling apart. Its great age and isolation have allowed many species to evolve there, including the Baikal seal, the only seal species found exclusively in freshwater.

Baikal is sometimes confused with Lake Tanganyika, which is the second-deepest lake and the deepest in Africa. Lake Superior is larger by surface area, but it is much shallower than Baikal.