50 Fun Facts About Bodies of Water

Which salt lake bordered by Jordan and Israel has shores that are the lowest land on Earth?

The Dead Sea lies more than 400 metres below sea level and is over nine times as salty as the ocean, which makes swimming there feel like floating.

Which sea bordered by Russia, Iran and three other countries is often ranked the world's largest lake?

The Caspian Sea covers an area larger than Germany and holds over 40% of the world's lake water, though that water is slightly salty rather than fresh.

Which Siberian lake, the world's deepest, holds more water than all five North American Great Lakes?

Baikal is also the world's oldest lake, at 25 to 30 million years, and it contains more than a fifth of the planet's fresh surface water.

Which busy seaway, crossed by a rail tunnel since 1994, do the French call La Manche, 'the sleeve'?

The English Channel is the busiest shipping area in the world, and its French name is usually said to describe its long, sleeve-like shape.

Which sea in the North Atlantic is the only one on Earth bounded by currents instead of land?

The Sargasso Sea takes its name from the floating Sargassum seaweed that covers it, and both European and American eels migrate there to spawn.

Which South American river carries more water to the sea than the next seven largest combined?

The Amazon delivers about a fifth of all the river water entering the world's oceans, and it already out-flows every other river by the time it reaches Brazil.

Which bay between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has the highest tides in the world?

The Bay of Fundy has a tidal range of about 16 metres, against a worldwide average of one metre, because the tide resonates in its funnel-shaped basin.

Which waterway, opened in 1914, raises ships 26 metres through locks to cross an artificial lake?

The Panama Canal spares ships the long, hazardous voyage around the southern tip of South America by carrying them across the isthmus instead.

Which of the world's five oceans is both the smallest and the shallowest?

The Arctic Ocean is partly covered by sea ice all year and almost completely in winter, and heavy river inflow with little evaporation makes its water the least salty of the five.

Which Scottish lake holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together?

Loch Ness, home of the legendary monster, is only the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area, but its great depth gives it the biggest volume in the British Isles.

Which river is formed at Khartoum, in Sudan, where its White and Blue branches join?

The Nile then flows north through Egypt to the Mediterranean, and at roughly 7,000 km it is the longest river in the world by the traditional reckoning.

Which lake, the largest freshwater lake by area, claimed the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975?

Superior sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in a November storm with the loss of all 29 crew, and Gordon Lightfoot immortalised the wreck in a ballad.

Which narrow waterway, only about 14 km across at its tightest point, separates Europe from Africa?

The Strait of Gibraltar links the Atlantic with the Mediterranean, and the heights that flank it were known in antiquity as the Pillars of Hercules.

Which lake on the border of Peru and Bolivia is often called the world's highest navigable lake?

Titicaca sits about 3,800 metres up in the Andes, where the Uros people live on floating islands that they build from layers of a buoyant sedge.

Which river flows through four capital cities, including Vienna and Budapest, to reach the Black Sea?

The Danube rises in Germany's Black Forest and also passes through Bratislava and Belgrade, and no other river in the world runs through as many capitals.

Which narrow waterway, about 82 km across at its tightest point, separates Russia from Alaska?

The Bering Strait is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish-born Russian explorer, and a land bridge there is thought to have let people walk from Asia into North America.

Which sea lies between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with the Suez Canal at its northern end?

The Red Sea may take its name from seasonal blooms of red-coloured cyanobacteria near the surface, though some scholars think 'red' once simply meant 'south'.

What Norwegian word names a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides, carved out by a glacier?

A fjord is usually deeper than the sea beyond it, and Norway's nearly 1,200 of them stretch its coastline from 2,500 km to an estimated 29,000 km.

Which lake, shared by Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, is the largest in Africa by surface area?

Victoria is also the world's largest tropical lake, and the explorer John Hanning Speke renamed it in 1858 after the British queen of the day.

Which river, called the Isis as it passes Oxford, flows on through Reading and Windsor to London?

The Thames is the longest river entirely in England at 215 miles, but the Severn beats it to the title of the United Kingdom's longest.

Which river flows south for about 2,340 miles from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota?

The Mississippi takes its name from an Ojibwe phrase meaning 'great river', yet it is only the second-longest river in the United States, behind the Missouri.

Which river rises in the Rocky Mountains and flows through the Grand Canyon on its way southwest?

The Colorado is tapped so heavily by seven US states and Mexico that its final 100 miles have dried up, and it has rarely reached the sea since the 1960s.

Which strait runs through the middle of Istanbul, dividing the city between Europe and Asia?

The Bosporus is the world's narrowest strait used for international shipping, and it links the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara.

Which river, the longest in Asia, is held back by China's giant Three Gorges Dam?

The Yangtze is the third-longest river in the world, and farmers along its lower reaches were among the earliest people anywhere to cultivate rice.

What kind of lake, called a billabong in Australia, forms when a river cuts off one of its meanders?

An oxbow forms when a river erodes through the narrow neck of a meander and takes the shorter course, after which silt seals off the abandoned loop.

Which Canadian bay touches Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec yet belongs politically to Nunavut alone?

Hudson Bay takes its name from the navigator Henry Hudson, who also gave his name to the river in New York that he explored in 1609.

Which sea, nicknamed 'The Ditch' by people on both shores, lies between Australia and New Zealand?

The Tasman Sea is about 2,250 km wide and is named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first known European to cross it.

Which is the only one of the five Great Lakes that lies entirely within the United States?

Lake Michigan is shared by Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and it is the largest lake in the world by area to lie wholly inside one country.

Which inlet on Cuba's southern coast gave its name to a failed 1961 invasion by CIA-backed exiles?

The Bay of Pigs may not be named for pigs at all: in Cuban Spanish the word cochinos can also mean the queen triggerfish that live on its coral reefs.

Which river, the most sacred to Hindus and worshipped as a goddess, rises in the western Himalayas?

The Ganges is revered across India, yet much of its water comes from tributaries that flow in from neighbouring Nepal.

Which salt lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan largely dried up after Soviet irrigation projects?

The Aral Sea was once among the largest lakes in the world, but after its feeder rivers were diverted in the 1960s it shrank to about a tenth of its original size.

Which body of fresh water in Oregon, fed only by rain and snow, is the deepest in the United States?

Crater Lake fills the hollow left when the volcano Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago, and with no rivers in or out its water takes some 150 years to be replaced.

Which arm of the Mediterranean, dotted with over 1,300 islands, separates Italy from the Balkans?

The Adriatic Sea is the Mediterranean's northernmost arm; nearly all of its islands lie along the eastern coast, and Venice, Trieste and Split stand on its shores.

What term describes a partly enclosed coastal water, like France's Gironde, where river and sea mix?

An estuary holds brackish water, saltier than a river but fresher than the open sea, and it forms a transition zone where river life and marine life overlap.

Which lake straddling California and Nevada is the largest alpine lake in North America?

Tahoe lies 6,225 feet up in the Sierra Nevada, and among the lakes of the United States only the five Great Lakes hold more water.

Which narrow passage between Iran and Oman is the only sea route out of the Persian Gulf?

The Strait of Hormuz ranks among the world's most strategically important choke points, because tankers leaving the Gulf's oil ports have no other way out to sea.

Which reservoir, the largest in the United States by capacity, was created by the Hoover Dam?

Lake Mead is named after Elwood Mead, the federal commissioner who oversaw the project, and its rising water forced towns such as St. Thomas, Nevada, to be abandoned.

What name is given to the deepest known point of Earth's seabed, found in the Mariana Trench?

Challenger Deep is named after two Royal Navy survey ships: HMS Challenger first located it in the 1870s, and Challenger II established its record depth in the 1950s.

Which arm of the Indian Ocean is fringed by the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest?

The Bay of Bengal covers about 2.6 million square km, and its coast also includes Cox's Bazar, one of the longest natural beaches in the world.

Which river, the longest in Europe, is widely regarded as the national river of Russia?

The Volga never reaches an ocean: it empties into a closed inland basin, and it is the longest river in the world to end that way.

Which African river, formerly called the Zaire, is the only major river to cross the equator twice?

The Congo is also the deepest river ever recorded, with measured depths of around 220 metres, and rain on both sides of the equator keeps its flow steady all year.

Which lake shared by Burundi, Zambia and two other countries is the longest freshwater lake on Earth?

Tanganyika is also the second-deepest lake on Earth and the second-largest freshwater lake by volume, as well as the biggest of Africa's rift lakes.

Which stormy stretch of sea separates Cape Horn, in Chile, from Antarctica's South Shetland Islands?

The Drake Passage is named after the privateer Sir Francis Drake, and because no landmass blocks the current that sweeps through it, its waves can top 12 metres.

Which waterway between Argentina and Uruguay, up to 220 km across, may be the world's widest river?

The Río de la Plata, literally the 'River of Silver', forms where the Uruguay and Paraná rivers meet, and Buenos Aires and Montevideo are its main port cities.

Which busy shipping lane runs between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra?

The Malacca Strait is the main shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific oceans; legend says the port that gave it its name was called after a tree its founder rested under.

Which lake, the largest under Antarctica's ice, shares its name with the Russian station above it?

Vostok ranks among the largest lakes on Earth by area, yet nobody has seen it: its water may have been sealed off from the surface for 15 to 25 million years.

Which stretch of the Indian Ocean, roughly 400 km across at its narrowest, separates Madagascar from Africa?

The Mozambique Channel runs for about 1,700 km from north to south, and in 1942 it became a World War II flashpoint during the Battle of Madagascar.

Which sea north of the Black Sea, nowhere more than 14 metres deep, is the world's shallowest?

The Sea of Azov has a smooth, flat bed built up from river deposits, and a strait only about 4 km wide joins it to its far larger neighbour.

Which lake in Southeast Asia swells each monsoon when the river that drains it reverses its flow?

Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, and its level can rise by about 10 metres when floodwater from the Mekong pushes back up its outlet.

Which body of water in Venezuela lies under the Catatumbo storms, Earth's most frequent lightning?

Lake Maracaibo holds brackish water and is joined to the Gulf of Venezuela by a narrow strait, and the storms gather where the Catatumbo River flows into it.