Lake · Russia · China
Khanka
Freshwater lake located on the border between Primorsky Krai, Russia and Heilongjiang province, Northeast China
- Area
- 4,119km²
- Max depth
- 11m
- Average depth
- 4.4m
- Elevation
- 64m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 372km
- Volume
- 18.1km³
Khanka is a lake in Russia. It covers 4,119 km². On average it is 4.4 m deep, and 11 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 64 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Khanka?
The water is warmest in August, around 23 °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 141 days a year, from around 13 November to 2 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 27 °C on average in July and -14 °C in January. The driest month is January (9 mm of rain), the wettest August (114 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (96 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 | — | -14 | -24 | 9 | 2 | 6.8 | 14 |
| February | Ice | — | -8 | -20 | 11 | 2 | 8.2 | 16 |
| March | Ice | — | 1 | -7 | 22 | 4 | 8.3 | 20 |
| April | 4 | 7 | 11 | 4 | 35 | 7 | 6.9 | 22 |
| May | 11 | 15 | 18 | 11 | 68 | 12 | 7.0 | 21 |
| June | 18 | 21 | 24 | 17 | 76 | 13 | 6.9 | 19 |
| July | 22 | 23 | 27 | 21 | 109 | 16 | 6.4 | 17 |
| August | 23 | 24 | 26 | 21 | 114 | 15 | 6.2 | 17 |
| September | 19 | 22 | 20 | 14 | 53 | 10 | 6.8 | 18 |
| October | 10 | 16 | 11 | 5 | 44 | 8 | 5.9 | 20 |
| November | Ice | — | -1 | -10 | 26 | 5 | 5.1 | 17 |
| December | Ice | — | -12 | -21 | 15 | 3 | 5.3 | 14 |
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 6.3 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 17,049 km² of land.
- About 90 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Khanka
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 23beaches and swimming spots
- —campsites
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 2marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 3viewpoints
- 38hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- 4restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Kamen’-Rybolov11,489 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Jixi Xingkaihu Airport (JXA), 100 km in a straight line.
OpenStreetMap 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 | -13.5 | -8.1 | 1.1 | 10.7 | 18.3 | 23.6 | 26.6 | 26.1 | 20.4 | 11.0 | -1.4 | -11.9 |
| 2020 | +0.9 | +1.1 | +1.5 | −1.1 | −0.2 | −2.1 | −0.4 | ±0.0 | −0.6 | −0.3 | ±0.0 | −1.9 |
| 2021 | −2.5 | −0.6 | +1.7 | +0.6 | +0.6 | −0.2 | +3.2 | +0.9 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | +3.2 | −0.4 |
| 2022 | −2.3 | ±0.0 | +1.7 | +2.0 | +0.2 | −0.9 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | −0.1 | −0.2 | +1.9 | +0.6 |
| 2023 | −1.8 | +1.1 | +3.7 | +0.1 | +0.9 | +0.3 | +0.9 | +0.1 | +1.1 | +1.7 | −2.4 | −2.2 |
| 2024 | −0.7 | +0.5 | −0.6 | +2.3 | −0.6 | −1.8 | −0.3 | +0.4 | +0.3 | +0.4 | +1.6 | +1.3 |
| 2025 | +1.4 | +1.3 | −0.1 | +0.7 | +0.7 | +1.6 | +3.0 | +0.5 | +2.2 | −1.8 | +2.3 | +2.1 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
About 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 (Q201843) · 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.
