Lake · El Salvador
Lake Ilopango
Crater lake in El Salvador
- Area
- 69.3km²
- Max depth
- 230m
- Average depth
- 53m
- Elevation
- 442m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 49km
- Volume
- 3.7km³
Lake Ilopango is a lake in El Salvador. It covers 69.3 km². On average it is 53 m deep, and 230 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 442 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Ilopango?
The water is warmest in July, around 29 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 26 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from January to December: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 34 °C on average in March and 29 °C in October. The driest month is January (3 mm of rain), the wettest September (234 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (122 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 | 32 | 22 | 3 | 1 | 9.4 | 12 |
| February | 26 | 27 | 34 | 22 | 4 | 1 | 9.6 | 11 |
| March | 27 | 27 | 34 | 23 | 6 | 1 | 9.4 | 12 |
| April | 28 | 28 | 34 | 25 | 32 | 5 | 8.1 | 10 |
| May | 28 | 28 | 32 | 24 | 169 | 19 | 7.0 | 9 |
| June | 28 | 28 | 30 | 24 | 193 | 22 | 7.5 | 8 |
| July | 29 | 29 | 31 | 24 | 155 | 20 | 8.8 | 8 |
| August | 28 | 29 | 30 | 24 | 198 | 23 | 8.4 | 8 |
| September | 28 | 28 | 29 | 24 | 234 | 24 | 7.3 | 8 |
| October | 28 | 28 | 29 | 23 | 204 | 19 | 7.1 | 8 |
| November | 27 | 27 | 30 | 22 | 40 | 6 | 8.8 | 10 |
| December | 26 | 27 | 31 | 22 | 10 | 2 | 9.4 | 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 23 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 168 km² of land.
- About 5.2 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Ilopango
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 24beaches and swimming spots
Punta Champaloma, Punta Peña del Eco, Punta Cuachimalco, Punta Cinco Tiros, Punta Teguantepeque and 19 more
- —campsites
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 1viewpoints
Mirador y Tienda Mary
- 1hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- 4restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Ilopango38,890 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Ilopango International Airport (ILS), 8 km in a straight line.
Car hire at SAL airport (San Salvador)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 | 32.5 | 33.6 | 34.0 | 33.7 | 31.5 | 29.7 | 30.9 | 30.4 | 28.9 | 28.7 | 29.8 | 31.3 |
| 2020 | +0.9 | +1.0 | +1.0 | +0.4 | +0.4 | −0.5 | −1.2 | −0.7 | −0.4 | +0.1 | −1.5 | −2.1 |
| 2021 | −2.1 | −1.6 | −1.5 | −2.2 | +0.2 | −0.7 | −0.6 | −1.1 | ±0.0 | +0.5 | ±0.0 | −1.2 |
| 2022 | −1.2 | −2.0 | −1.2 | −0.8 | −1.0 | −1.1 | −0.7 | −0.8 | −0.6 | +0.2 | −0.6 | −1.9 |
| 2023 | −1.3 | ±0.0 | −0.7 | −0.4 | +1.7 | +2.0 | +1.9 | +1.4 | +2.9 | +0.4 | +0.6 | +0.1 |
| 2024 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | −0.3 | +0.9 | −0.6 | −0.2 | +0.4 | +0.3 | +1.1 | −0.9 | −1.9 |
| 2025 | −1.3 | −0.4 | +0.3 | +0.7 | +1.8 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.4 | +0.7 | +0.2 | +0.3 | +0.2 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
Honduras
GuatemalaAbout 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 (Q14638420) · 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.
