Lake · Turkey
Lake Bafa
Bafa Gölü
Lake in Aydın and Muğla Provinces, Turkey
- Area
- 63.7km²
- Max depth
- 25m
- Average depth
- 22m
- Elevation
- 0m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 76km
- Volume
- 1.4km³
Lake Bafa is a lake in Turkey. It covers 63.7 km². On average it is 22 m deep, and 25 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 0 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Bafa?
The water is warmest in July, around 28 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 10 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from May to October: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 37 °C on average in July and 12 °C in January. The driest month is August (3 mm of rain), the wettest January (148 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (117 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 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 4 | 148 | 12 | 4.7 | 15 |
| February | 10 | 11 | 13 | 5 | 109 | 11 | 5.5 | 15 |
| March | 13 | 15 | 16 | 6 | 65 | 9 | 7.4 | 14 |
| April | 18 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 48 | 8 | 9.1 | 13 |
| May | 22 | 24 | 26 | 14 | 30 | 6 | 10.8 | 12 |
| June | 26 | 28 | 32 | 19 | 11 | 2 | 12.7 | 13 |
| July | 28 | 28 | 37 | 22 | 4 | 1 | 13.2 | 15 |
| August | 28 | 28 | 37 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 12.0 | 14 |
| September | 26 | 27 | 31 | 18 | 19 | 2 | 10.3 | 13 |
| October | 22 | 24 | 25 | 13 | 52 | 6 | 8.1 | 12 |
| November | 17 | 20 | 19 | 9 | 96 | 8 | 6.2 | 13 |
| December | 13 | 15 | 14 | 5 | 141 | 12 | 4.5 | 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 17 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 295 km² of land.
- About 2.6 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 2.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Bafa
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 6beaches and swimming spots
- 5campsites
Turgut Camp, Bafa Gölü Kampı
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 4viewpoints
- 10hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Pelikan Pansiyon Restoran, Zeybek Restoran Pansiyon, Haus Yasemin Pensiyon, Kaya Pension Restaurant, Ada Pansiyon and 5 more
- —fishing spots
- 13restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Milas Bodrum International Airport (BJV), 34 km in a straight line.
Car hire at BJV airport (Bodrum)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 | 11.8 | 12.9 | 16.0 | 20.1 | 26.0 | 32.4 | 37.0 | 36.9 | 31.3 | 25.1 | 18.8 | 13.5 |
| 2020 | −0.6 | +0.7 | +0.6 | +0.6 | +1.6 | −1.8 | +1.2 | +0.1 | +2.8 | +1.8 | +0.7 | +2.2 |
| 2021 | +1.2 | +1.6 | −1.3 | −0.3 | +2.5 | −0.5 | +0.8 | +1.0 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | +2.1 | −0.1 |
| 2022 | −1.6 | +0.4 | −4.3 | +1.2 | +2.0 | +1.3 | +0.9 | −1.2 | +0.4 | +1.9 | +1.9 | +3.0 |
| 2023 | +3.0 | −0.7 | +1.4 | −0.2 | −0.5 | −0.9 | +1.7 | −0.8 | +2.9 | +2.1 | +2.3 | +3.2 |
| 2024 | +1.6 | +2.6 | +1.9 | +4.8 | +1.7 | +6.6 | +2.5 | +1.4 | +0.4 | +2.4 | +0.9 | +0.8 |
| 2025 | +2.9 | −2.4 | +1.7 | −0.7 | −0.7 | +3.8 | +2.0 | +0.1 | +1.8 | −1.4 | +2.3 | +1.5 |
+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 (Q799781) · 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.
