Lake · Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
Lake Victoria
Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the largest tropical lake in the world. Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya share its shores, and the White Nile begins here.
Picture credit: Theo Matundura (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Kironde Hezron (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Michael Shade (Public domain) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Victoria?
Countries on its shores: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda.
Largest lake of: Tanzania, Uganda.
Middle of the lake: 1.00° S, 33.00° E
The story behind it
Lake Victoria lies high up, about 1 135 metres above the sea, yet it is quite shallow: its deepest point is only 81 metres. Its biggest river, the Kagera, flows in, and near the town of Jinja in Uganda the water leaves the lake as the White Nile. Almost half of the lake belongs to Tanzania and almost as much to Uganda, so for both countries it is their largest lake; Kenya has a small corner. Big cities such as Kampala, Mwanza and Kisumu lie near its shores, and many islands, like the Ssese Islands and Ukerewe, dot the water. The lake was once home to more than 500 kinds of small, colourful cichlid fish, but many vanished after the big Nile perch spread through the lake. The lake is about 400 000 years old and has dried up completely at least three times.
Find it on the globe
Lake Victoria 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 Victoria?
Lake Victoria covers about 68 800 km², making it the second-largest freshwater lake on Earth after Lake Superior. Different measurements give slightly different numbers, so its size is always given as about.
For which countries is Lake Victoria the largest lake?
It is the largest lake of Tanzania, which owns about 49 percent of it, and of Uganda, which owns about 45 percent. Kenya's small share of about 6 percent is smaller than Kenya's own Lake Turkana.
Which fish live in Lake Victoria?
The lake was famous for more than 500 kinds of small cichlid fish. Then the large Nile perch spread through the lake, and since then about 200 of these kinds have disappeared.
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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