Lake · Georgia · Turkey
Kartsakhi Lake
Lake between Georgia and Turkey
- Area
- 25.0km²
- Max depth
- 1m
- Average depth
- 12m
- Elevation
- 1,798m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 29km
- Volume
- 0.307km³
Kartsakhi Lake is a lake in Georgia. It covers 25.0 km². On average it is 12 m deep, and 1 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 1,798 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
How warm is Kartsakhi Lake?
The water is warmest in July, around 21 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from July to August: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 105 days a year, from around 26 November to 10 March.
On the shore, afternoons reach 23 °C on average in August and -5 °C in January. The driest month is February (36 mm of rain), the wettest May (84 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (128 readings). Shallow bays and beaches are often warmer.
From above
The whole lake from space
Month by month
The year at the lake, month by month
Not a forecast: these are averages over many years. Water is the 2013–2021 average; air, rain, sun and wind are the 1991–2020 average.
Water: 2013–2021 averageClimate: 1991–2020 average
| Month | Water°C | Water high°C | Air high°C | Air low°C | Rainmm | Rainy daysdays | Sunh/day | Windkm/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Ice | — | -5 | -16 | 43 | 11 | 4.5 | 13 |
| February | Ice | — | -3 | -14 | 36 | 10 | 6.6 | 14 |
| March | 2 | 5 | 2 | -8 | 48 | 11 | 6.1 | 15 |
| April | 9 | 12 | 8 | -3 | 64 | 13 | 6.5 | 13 |
| May | 15 | 17 | 13 | 2 | 84 | 16 | 6.7 | 11 |
| June | 19 | 20 | 18 | 6 | 78 | 15 | 8.5 | 11 |
| July | 21 | 21 | 22 | 9 | 58 | 12 | 8.9 | 12 |
| August | 20 | 21 | 23 | 9 | 52 | 11 | 9.0 | 11 |
| September | 18 | 19 | 19 | 5 | 47 | 10 | 7.7 | 11 |
| October | 11 | 15 | 12 | 0 | 63 | 11 | 5.7 | 11 |
| November | 3 | 7 | 3 | -6 | 50 | 10 | 4.3 | 12 |
| December | Ice | — | -2 | -13 | 49 | 10 | 4.1 | 12 |
Water: LakeTEMP (Landsat 8, 2013–2021). Air, rain, sun and wind: NASA POWER, 1991–2020 averages. A rainy day has at least 1 mm of rain. Sunshine hours are derived from measured solar radiation.
Size & depth
How big, how deep
- On average, water stays in the lake for about 15 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 153 km² of land.
- About 0.7 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Kartsakhi Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- —campsites
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 3viewpoints
- —hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Kars Airport (KSY), 73 km in a straight line.
Car hire at KUT airport (Kopitnari)Discover Cars · Affiliate linkOpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
Recent years
How each month compared
Afternoon high on the shore. The first row is the reference, the 1991–2020 average in °C; the years below show the difference from it: warmer in orange, cooler in blue.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991–2020 average | -4.7 | -2.7 | 2.1 | 7.9 | 13.4 | 18.4 | 22.2 | 23.2 | 18.7 | 11.7 | 3.4 | -2.5 |
| 2020 | −0.3 | −0.9 | +3.1 | −1.0 | +0.6 | +1.0 | +0.3 | −1.6 | +3.1 | +3.4 | +0.3 | +1.2 |
| 2021 | +2.9 | +1.5 | −1.3 | +2.9 | +3.7 | +4.2 | +1.0 | +1.2 | −0.6 | −1.0 | +2.8 | +2.0 |
| 2022 | −1.0 | +0.2 | −5.6 | +2.6 | −1.1 | +1.2 | +1.3 | +3.0 | +2.2 | +1.3 | +1.7 | +3.2 |
| 2023 | +3.5 | −1.8 | +3.7 | +0.8 | ±0.0 | −0.3 | −0.2 | +2.4 | +0.5 | +0.9 | +3.3 | +3.8 |
| 2024 | +1.8 | +2.0 | +0.7 | +6.3 | −1.6 | +1.2 | −1.6 | +0.4 | −0.1 | −1.0 | ±0.0 | +1.8 |
| 2025 | +4.7 | −1.3 | +4.0 | +1.5 | +2.8 | +1.0 | +1.7 | +3.7 | −0.5 | +0.8 | +6.1 | +1.9 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
ArmeniaAbout these numbers
| Outline, area, depth, volume | HydroLAKES v1.0 (Messager et al. 2016) · CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|
| Water temperature and ice | LakeTEMP v1 (Korver et al. 2024), Landsat 8 2013–2021 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Air, rain, sun, wind | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 · public domain |
| Names and description | Wikidata (Q421825) · CC0 |
| Around the shore | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
