Lake · Tanzania
Lake Eyasi
Lake Eyasi is a shallow salt lake in northern Tanzania, in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. Its size changes a lot: in very wet years it floods its banks, and in dry years it can almost disappear.
Picture credit: kiwiexplorer (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Eyasi?
Countries on its shores: Tanzania.
Middle of the lake: 3.58° S, 35.00° E
The story behind it
No river flows out of Lake Eyasi. Water comes in from the Sibiti River, from other rivers and from springs, and then evaporates in the hot sun, so the lake is salty. Most of the time it is less than one metre deep, and in very dry years people can even walk across it. When there is water, huge flocks of flamingos wade in the shallows, and hippos sometimes come to visit. The Hadza people have lived around the lake for a very long time, and many of them still hunt and gather their food. In Mumba Cave near the lake, scientists found stone tools from the Stone Age, and near the lake they also found a human skull that is at least 100 000 years old. Today farmers at the western end grow so many onions that it is one of East Africa's great onion regions.
Find it on the globe
Lake Eyasi is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is Lake Eyasi?
Lake Eyasi covers about 1 050 km² when it is full. Its size changes a lot, because in dry years the lake can dry up almost completely.
Why is Lake Eyasi salty?
Rivers and springs bring water into the lake, but no river carries it away again. The water evaporates in the heat, and the salt stays behind in the lake.
Who lives around Lake Eyasi?
The Hadza people have lived around the lake for a very long time, and many of them still live by hunting and gathering. Other peoples live nearby too, among them the Datooga, and many farmers grow onions at the western end of the lake.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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