Lake · Zambia
Lake Bangweulu
Lake in northern Zambia
- Area
- 1,764km²
- Max depth
- 10m
- Average depth
- 1.0m
- Elevation
- 1,163m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 513km
- Volume
- 1.8km³
Lake Bangweulu is a lake in Zambia. It covers 1,764 km². On average it is 1.0 m deep, and 10 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 1,163 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Bangweulu?
The water is warmest in December, around 26 °C at the surface, and coldest in July, around 19 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from September to May: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 33 °C on average in October and 25 °C in June. The driest month is July (0 mm of rain), the wettest December (263 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (113 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 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 19 | 250 | 30 | 5.4 | 10 |
| February | 25 | 26 | 26 | 19 | 188 | 25 | 6.2 | 10 |
| March | 25 | 25 | 26 | 18 | 157 | 26 | 7.0 | 11 |
| April | 24 | 24 | 27 | 16 | 43 | 10 | 8.3 | 16 |
| May | 22 | 23 | 26 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 9.8 | 16 |
| June | 20 | 21 | 25 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 10.2 | 16 |
| July | 19 | 19 | 25 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 10.2 | 17 |
| August | 20 | 20 | 28 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 10.1 | 18 |
| September | 22 | 23 | 32 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 9.6 | 19 |
| October | 24 | 25 | 33 | 20 | 18 | 4 | 8.9 | 18 |
| November | 25 | 26 | 31 | 20 | 117 | 17 | 7.7 | 14 |
| December | 26 | 26 | 27 | 19 | 263 | 28 | 6.1 | 10 |
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 4 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 16,608 km² of land.
- About 172 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.5 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Bangweulu
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
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 4hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Samfya Beach Hotel, Kabulye Guest house, Twemu Guest house, waterfront hotel
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Samfya51,309 people
- Chilubi9,962 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Lubumbashi International Airport (FBM), 266 km in a straight line.
Car hire at NLA airport (Ndola)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 | 25.5 | 25.9 | 26.4 | 27.1 | 26.5 | 25.2 | 25.4 | 28.4 | 31.5 | 33.3 | 30.9 | 26.6 |
| 2020 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | −0.3 | −0.1 | −1.1 | −1.1 | −1.6 | −0.5 | −0.8 | −0.3 | +0.4 | −0.9 |
| 2021 | −0.6 | −0.9 | −1.3 | −1.6 | −2.4 | −1.8 | −2.2 | −1.2 | −1.1 | −0.5 | −0.4 | +5.0 |
| 2022 | −0.5 | −1.8 | −0.4 | −0.8 | −1.5 | −2.7 | −1.9 | −1.4 | −1.6 | −0.8 | −1.8 | −0.9 |
| 2023 | −0.3 | +0.1 | −0.9 | −1.4 | −1.1 | −0.2 | −1.1 | −1.0 | +0.2 | −0.3 | −0.7 | +1.0 |
| 2024 | ±0.0 | +1.2 | +0.8 | −0.7 | −0.5 | −0.5 | +1.2 | +0.2 | ±0.0 | −0.9 | +1.3 | +3.8 |
| 2025 | +0.2 | +0.8 | +0.8 | +1.5 | +0.5 | +1.9 | +0.3 | −0.3 | +0.7 | +0.8 | −1.4 | +0.8 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
DR CongoAbout 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 (Q673169) · 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.
