Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area and the world's biggest tropical lake, yet it is remarkably shallow - never more than about 84 m deep across its entire 68,800 sq km surface. Toggle the mean-depth reference plane to see how little the average depth differs from the maximum.
Published figures: surface area about 68,800 sq km; maximum depth about 84 m; mean depth about 40 m - one of the shallowest large lakes on Earth relative to its size.
Drag to orbit and scroll or pinch to zoom. Everything renders on your device with WebGL.
Lake Victoria 3D Explorer
This browser explorer shows Lake Victoria in cross-section: a vast, gently sloping saucer of a basin where the floor barely drops - about 84 m at its deepest point, against a mean depth of about 40 m across the whole 68,800 sq km surface. That flatness is the story: unlike a rift-valley lake with a deep narrow trench, Victoria is wide and shallow from shore to shore.
The lake sits at about 1,133 m above sea level and is shared by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Its only major outflow is the White Nile, which leaves the lake at Jinja, Uganda, near the site of the historic Ripon Falls (now the Nalubaale Dam) - the traditionally cited source of the Nile. Geologically the lake is young, roughly 400,000 years old, and it has dried up completely at least once in the past - around 17,300 years ago - before refilling to its present size. Its shallow, warm waters also support several hundred endemic cichlid fish species, among the richest concentrations of fish diversity anywhere in the world.
- Toggle the depth bands to see how nearly uniform the shallow floor is across the whole basin
- Toggle the mean-depth reference plane to compare the average depth with the maximum
- Read area, depth, and outflow figures in the panel
- Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom
- Runs fully in the browser with the vendored three.js engine - no account, no upload
| Figure | Published value |
|---|---|
| Surface area | about 68,800 sq km - the largest tropical lake and second-largest fresh water lake by area in the world |
| Maximum depth | about 84 m |
| Mean depth | about 40 m |
| Volume | about 2,750 cubic km |
| Elevation | about 1,133 m above sea level |
| Approximate age | about 400,000 years - dried up completely around 17,300 years ago before refilling |
| Main outflow | the White Nile, at Jinja, Uganda |
| Bordering countries | Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda |
For a lake with the opposite profile - narrow, ancient, and extremely deep - open the Lake Baikal 3D Explorer, or compare a sea-scale basin in the Caspian Sea 3D Explorer.
Everything renders on your device with WebGL. The 3D engine loads once (about 0.7 MB) and is cached.
This is an educational approximation - the basin profile, shelf boundary, and vertical scale are schematic teaching cues, not survey data.
Frequently Asked Questions
How deep is Lake Victoria?
The maximum depth is only about 84 m, and the mean depth across the whole 68,800 sq km lake is about 40 m - shallow for a lake this large.
Why is Lake Victoria so shallow compared to its size?
Unlike rift-valley lakes such as Lake Baikal or Lake Tanganyika, Victoria sits in a broad, shallow depression rather than a deep tectonic trench, so its floor stays close to a nearly uniform depth from shore to shore.
Is Lake Victoria the source of the Nile?
It is the traditionally cited source of the White Nile, which leaves the lake at Jinja, Uganda, near the historic Ripon Falls site (now the Nalubaale Dam).
Which countries border Lake Victoria?
Kenya and Tanzania to the east and south, and Uganda to the north and west.
Has Lake Victoria ever dried up?
Yes. Geological evidence shows the lake dried up completely around 17,300 years ago during a past arid period, then refilled to roughly its present size - it is a geologically young lake, about 400,000 years old.
Is this a scientific terrain model?
No. It is an educational explorer using published figures - the basin profile, shelf boundary, and vertical scale are schematic teaching cues, not survey data.