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Large reservoirs and regulated lakes worldwide

Explore reservoirs and regulated lakes of at least 100 square kilometres from HydroLAKES. Compare their areas, countries, and reported storage volumes.

HydroLAKES v1.0, Messager and colleagues, 2016. Selected and simplified on 2026-09-15.

About this dataset

  • This map includes HydroLAKES records classified as reservoirs or regulated natural lakes with an area of at least 100 square kilometres.
  • Area and storage values come from the source release. They do not show current water levels.
  • Open the map to compare large water storage sites and add notes or routes.
  • Boundaries are simplified for display. Unnamed source records use their HydroLAKES identifier.

Source and licence

HydroLAKES

Licence: CC BY 4.0

GeoJSON download details

The download includes all 412 features as area groups, areas. Coordinates use longitude and latitude in WGS84.

The preparation date is when we prepared this dataset. Read the source notes for the dates covered by the data.

GeoJSON fields 6
name
Source lake name or HydroLAKES identifier.
lake_id
HydroLAKES identifier.
country
Country recorded by the source.
area_km2
Source waterbody area in square kilometres.
lake_type
2 means reservoir; 3 means regulated natural lake.
reservoir_volume_mcm
Reservoir storage volume in million cubic metres; a negative value means unavailable.