Lake · Australia
Lake Eyre
Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre is a huge salt lake in the dry heart of Australia. Most of the time it is an empty plain covered in salt, but after rare big floods it becomes Australia's largest lake.
Picture credit: Stephan Ridgway (CC BY 2.0) · eyeintim (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Eyre?
Countries on its shores: Australia.
Largest lake of: Australia.
Middle of the lake: 28.67° S, 137.33° E
The story behind it
Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre is the lowest place in Australia, about 15 metres below sea level. Most of the time the lake bed is dry, and in places it is covered by a crust of salt up to 50 cm thick. Water only arrives when heavy rain floods the rivers far upstream, in an area called Channel Country. Small floods come about every three years, but the lake fills completely only a few times in a century, for example in 1974. Then it covers up to about 9 500 km² and is the largest lake in Australia. At first the water is as salty as the sea, and as it dries up it becomes even saltier. Floods bring birds in huge numbers: in 1989–1990 about 200 000 pelicans came here. In 1964 Donald Campbell raced his car Bluebird across the hard salt at about 649 km/h, a world record. The Arabana people call the lake Kati Thanda.
Find it on the globe
Lake Eyre 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 Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre?
When it is completely full, the lake covers up to about 9 500 km². Most of the time, though, it holds little or no water.
Why is the lake usually dry?
It lies in a very dry region, and water only arrives when rivers far upstream flood after heavy rain. In the heat the water soon evaporates and leaves the salt behind.
Is Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre the largest lake in Australia?
Yes, when it fills completely, no lake in Australia is bigger. But between 1860 and 2025 that happened only three times.
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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