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Lac du Bourget @ Mont Laval (51043830807)
Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France · CC BY 2.0

FranceLake · France

Lac du Bourget

Lake in France

Area
42.6km²
Max depth
145m
Average depth
69m
Elevation
230m a.s.l.
Shoreline
43km
Volume
2.9km³

Lac du Bourget is a lake in France. It covers 42.6 km². On average it is 69 m deep, and 145 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 230 m above sea level.

Plan your visit

Stay, sail and get there

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5°6°8°12°16°21°24°24°21°16°11°7°JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec24°July

The water

How warm is Lac du Bourget?

The water is warmest in July, around 24 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 5 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from June to September: comfortable for most swimmers.

It does not normally freeze in winter.

On the shore, afternoons reach 25 °C on average in July and 4 °C in January. The driest month is February (62 mm of rain), the wettest November (97 mm).

Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (78 readings). Shallow bays and beaches are often warmer.

From above

The whole lake from space

Lac du Bourget seen from space (Sentinel-2)
45.673°N 5.875°E · Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0 · Places © OpenStreetMap contributors

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

The year at the lake, month by month
MonthWater°CWater high°CAir high°CAir low°CRainmmRainy daysdaysSunh/dayWindkm/h
January564-379122.68
February666-262104.09
March81010174115.89
April121415469126.99
May161918897147.49
June2123231277139.48
July2425251472129.88
August2425251476108.77
September2123201070107.07
October161916689124.78
November11139297132.98
December795-286122.38

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

Lac du BourgetLake AnnecyLoch Ness10 km
Drawn to the same scale, next to lakes you may know.
  • On average, water stays in the lake for about 7.9 years before flowing out.
  • Its catchment drains 594 km² of land.
  • About 12 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.

Around the shore

What's around Lac du Bourget

Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.

  • 32beaches and swimming spots

    plage des Meuniers, Plage de Charpignat, Naturistes, Plage aux Dames, Plage d'Aix les Bains and 27 more

  • 10campsites

    Camping de l'Île aux Cygnes, Camping du Pêcheur, Camping International du Sierroz, L'Île aux Cygnes, Aire de camping-car d'Aix-les-Bains and 5 more

  • 15boat hire and water-sport clubs

    Aix'n Ride, Tombant de Chindrieu/Châtillon, Pierre à Bise, Site de plongée de Challière, Le Cap Vert and 10 more

  • 33marinas and slipways

    Mise à l'eau, Port de Terre Nue, Port de Brison Station, Port des Grèbes, Port des Quatre Chemins and 28 more

  • 3ferry piers

    Compagnie des Bateaux du Lac du Bourget

  • 80viewpoints

    Grotte des Fées, Belvédère de la Chambotte, Belvédère de la Grande Molière, Sentier Botanique, Belvédère des Tours de César and 75 more

  • 37hotels, B&Bs and chalets

    Azuréa, Adelphia, Hôtel Savoy, Hôtel Bristol, La Maison des Pêcheurs and 32 more

  • —fishing spots
  • 131restaurants and cafés

Towns on the shore

  • Aix-les-Bains27,651 people
  • Le Bourget-du-Lac4,263 people
  • Grésy-sur-Aix3,380 people
  • Tresserve3,303 people
  • Châtillon2,880 people
  • Drumettaz2,141 people
  • Brison-Saint-Innocent2,023 people
  • Viviers-du-Lac1,622 people

Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Chambéry Aix les Bains airport (CMF), 4 km in a straight line.

Car hire at GNB airport (Grenoble)Discover Cars · Affiliate link

OpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

Photos

Seen by visitors

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.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
1991–2020 average4.35.810.514.918.322.724.924.620.416.09.45.0
2020+2.4+4.0+1.1+2.7+1.5−2.0+0.8+1.2+1.5−2.1+2.1+0.7
2021−2.3+4.0+0.3−1.9−2.4+0.6−1.6−1.6+1.5−0.6−2.2−0.5
2022+0.2+2.3+2.3−0.4+3.0+3.0+3.4+3.9+0.5+4.7+2.2+1.8
2023+0.7+2.7+1.7−1.2±0.0+1.5+1.7+3.2+5.2+4.1+0.3+2.0
2024+1.7+4.4+2.0−0.5−0.7−0.4+0.9+2.0−1.2+1.7+1.8+0.4
2025+2.2+2.5+1.4+1.5+0.6+3.7−0.3+1.9−0.6−1.0+0.4+2.6

+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual

About these numbers

Outline, area, depth, volumeHydroLAKES v1.0 (Messager et al. 2016) · CC BY 4.0
Water temperature and iceLakeTEMP v1 (Korver et al. 2024), Landsat 8 2013–2021 · CC BY 4.0
Air, rain, sun, windNASA POWER, 1991–2020 · public domain
Names and descriptionWikidata (Q23426) · CC0
Around the shore© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX 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.

Read more on Wikipedia

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves or dark skies?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.

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dark skiesDarkskyasWhere the night is still dark: the sky of every place, the Milky Way month by month, the Moon, eclipses and auroras.Coming soonVisit