Published : 03/07/2026
There are thousands upon thousands of lakes in China, and many people know the largest lake is Qinghai Lake, so is there a smallest lake?
Yes, there is, this lake is only 8 square metres, yet an industrial city was named after it.....
Over 28,400 lakes in the country
According to official data, China has more than 24,800 lakes, which are mainly small and medium-sized, among which there are about 2,800 natural lakes with an area of more than 1 square kilometre.
How big is 1 square kilometre? It is approximately the size of the Shek Pik Reservoir on Lantau Island in Hong Kong, or one-sixth of Hangzhou's West Lake.
Although China has numerous lakes, they are unevenly distributed. The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the east have the most freshwater lakes, while the western Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is a concentrated area of plateau lakes, mainly inland saltwater lakes; China's largest lake, Qinghai Lake, is located in the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau.
The name Qinghai Lake originates from the Tibetan phrase for "cyan sea", and the province where it is located, Qinghai Province, is named after the lake.
It is an endorheic lake into which river water flows but does not flow out, and it is also a saltwater lake.
Its area is about 4,500 square kilometres, which is equivalent to four times the size of Hong Kong (Hong Kong's land area is approximately 1,145 square kilometres). Standing by the lake, the opposite shore is almost invisible to the naked eye.
Is Qarhan Salt Lake larger?
How far is a trip around Qinghai Lake? The road circling Qinghai Lake is over 360 kilometres long, which is equivalent to a round trip between Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Qinghai Lake and its surrounding areas have been developed for tourism. Bird Island in the northwest of the lake is only 500 metres long and 150 metres wide, but it is home to over a hundred thousand various migratory birds and is described as the "Kingdom of Birds"; in summer, the lakeside rapeseed flowers are in full bloom, creating a boundless sea of yellow flowers that is a must-visit spot for tourists.
However, although Qinghai Lake is large, it is not deep. Its deepest point is only just over 30 metres. China's deepest lake is Heaven Lake of Changbai Mountain on the border between China and North Korea, with its deepest point reaching 373 metres, almost deep enough to submerge the entire Central Plaza building.
It is worth noting that China actually has an even larger lake, which is the Qarhan Salt Lake at the lowest point of the Qaidam Basin in Qinghai Province, with an area of over 5,800 square kilometres.
Jiangxi's Poyang Lake is extremely elastic
Like many salt lakes, a large part of Qarhan Salt Lake has formed a hard salt crust due to water evaporation. Roads and railways can be built directly on this salt crust, which is different from the common perception of a lake. Therefore, many media outlets do not include it in the 'rankings' of lakes, only referring to it as China's largest salt lake.
As for China's second-largest lake, which is also its largest freshwater lake, it is Poyang Lake in northern Jiangxi. The character 鄱 is pronounced pó in Mandarin and has the same sound as '婆' (po4) in Cantonese.
Poyang Lake is fed by several rivers, including the Gan River, and is connected to the Yangtze River.
It is the "super reservoir" of the Yangtze River: when the main stream of the Yangtze River floods, it absorbs the backflow of floodwater from the Yangtze, relieving the pressure of flood discharge on the main river.
Poyang Lake has an area of about 3,500 square kilometres, but it is highly "elastic" in size.
During the rainy and flood season, it expands rapidly, even temporarily surpassing Qinghai Lake to become the largest in China; during droughts, the lake's surface can shrink to just a tenth of its size, turning the exposed lakebed into a vast "grassland". A local driving school once moved its practice ground here, with cars driving back and forth on the lakebed.
The largest man-made lake – Three Gorges Dam Reservoir
Poyang Lake is also the largest migratory bird habitat in Asia, with as many as 700,000 to 800,000 migratory birds wintering here each year.
In addition, Poyang Lake, along with Hunan's Dongting Lake, Anhui's Chaohu Lake, and Jiangsu's Taihu Lake and Hongze Lake, are traditionally known as China's five great freshwater lakes.
Dongting Lake and Taihu Lake are China's third and fourth largest lakes, and Hongze Lake is also highly ranked, but Chaohu Lake, the "fifth", does not rank in the top ten in terms of area.
Another freshwater lake in China worth mentioning is Hulun Lake in Inner Mongolia; its area is over 2,300 square kilometres, making it larger than both Hongze Lake and Chaohu Lake of the "five great freshwater lakes". Furthermore, China has many large artificial lakes, the largest of which covers an area of over 1,000 square kilometres; it is the Three Gorges Reservoir.
Returning to the question of the "smallest". The "largeness" of a lake can be calculated by its water surface area, but the standard for "smallness" seems a bit unclear.
For example, if its area is small to a certain extent, some might not consider it a lake.
Benxi City in Liaoning is named after a lake
In any case, according to media reports, China's "smallest lake" is Benxi Lake, located at the foot of a cliff on the western slope of Woyun Mountain in Benxi City, Liaoning Province.
It is formed by groundwater flowing out of a limestone cave and is a lake within a cave. Its average surface area is 15.415 square metres, which can reach 22.52 square metres during the summer high-water season, but drops to 8.31 square metres during the winter dry season.
Please note that the unit of area for large lakes like Qinghai Lake is square kilometres, whereas for Benxi Lake it is square metres; 1 square kilometre equals 1 million square metres.
At 8.31 square metres, many residential bedrooms are larger than this. Many years ago, the Benxi tourism department applied to a "China's Best" organisation to have Benxi Lake recognised as the "smallest lake", a record which can be found on related websites.
According to reports, the name of Benxi City originates from Benxi Lake. The city is an old industrial base in the Northeast, once having rich mineral deposits and a large steel industry, but in recent years it has begun to transform and develop industries such as tourism.
To add a final note, the world's largest lake is the Caspian Sea, with an area of over 370,000 square kilometres. China's Qinghai Lake is only about 1/80th of its size. In terms of area, Qinghai Lake ranks after 30th globally.
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