Lake · Russia
Lake Onega
Lake Onega in northwestern Russia is the second-largest lake in Europe, after Lake Ladoga. Famous wooden churches stand on one of its islands, and rock carvings thousands of years old cover parts of its shore.
Picture credit: groshev1971 (CC BY 3.0) · Alexxx1979 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · ММВ73 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Onega?
Countries on its shores: Russia.
Middle of the lake: 61.69° N, 35.66° E
The story behind it
Lake Onega is about 245 kilometres long and is dotted with more than 1 300 islands. More than 50 rivers flow into it, but only one short river, the Svir, flows out and carries the water on to Lake Ladoga. On Kizhi Island stands a group of wooden buildings that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of its churches has 22 domes, and another has nine. On the eastern shore, people carved about 1 200 pictures into the rocks several thousand years ago, and these became a World Heritage Site in 2021. The city of Petrozavodsk, founded in 1703, lies on the lake. In late November the shores and small bays begin to freeze, and by the middle of January even the centre of the lake is covered in ice. The White Sea–Baltic Canal runs through the lake.
Find it on the globe
Lake Onega 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 Onega?
Lake Onega covers about 9 700 km², which makes it the second-largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga. Sources give slightly different sizes, from about 9 600 to about 9 900 km².
What is special about Kizhi Island?
On Kizhi stand old wooden buildings, including a church with 22 domes. They are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Where does the water of Lake Onega go?
Only one river, the short Svir, flows out of Lake Onega. It carries the water to Lake Ladoga, and from there it reaches the Baltic Sea.
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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