Reservoir · Zambia · Zimbabwe
Lake Kariba
Reservoir in Zimbabwe
- Area
- 5,277km²
- Max depth
- 78m
- Average depth
- 35m
- Elevation
- 487m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 3,120km
- Volume
- 185km³
Lake Kariba is a reservoir in Zambia. It covers 5,277 km². On average it is 35 m deep, and 78 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 487 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
How warm is Lake Kariba?
The water is warmest in January, around 28 °C at the surface, and coldest in August, around 22 °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 36 °C on average in October and 28 °C in July. The driest month is August (0 mm of rain), the wettest January (174 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (97 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 | 28 | 28 | 31 | 23 | 174 | 25 | 6.9 | 10 |
| February | 28 | 28 | 30 | 23 | 130 | 22 | 7.1 | 10 |
| March | 28 | 28 | 31 | 22 | 100 | 18 | 7.6 | 10 |
| April | 27 | 27 | 31 | 20 | 28 | 5 | 8.6 | 10 |
| May | 25 | 26 | 30 | 17 | 3 | 1 | 9.7 | 9 |
| June | 23 | 24 | 28 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 9.2 | 10 |
| July | 22 | 23 | 28 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 9.4 | 10 |
| August | 22 | 22 | 30 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 10.1 | 11 |
| September | 23 | 24 | 34 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 10.1 | 14 |
| October | 25 | 26 | 36 | 24 | 9 | 2 | 10.0 | 15 |
| November | 27 | 27 | 35 | 25 | 69 | 12 | 8.4 | 14 |
| December | 28 | 28 | 32 | 24 | 172 | 22 | 6.9 | 11 |
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 4.5 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 679,344 km² of land.
- About 1,315 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 12.1 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Kariba
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
Towns on the shore
- Kariba27,600 people
- Siavonga26,951 people
- Sinazongwe15,191 people
- Binga4,327 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Kariba Airport (KAB), 126 km in a straight line.
Car hire at LUN airport (Lusaka)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 | 30.8 | 30.3 | 30.9 | 31.3 | 30.0 | 27.9 | 27.6 | 30.4 | 34.0 | 36.5 | 35.4 | 31.8 |
| 2020 | +1.1 | −0.2 | +0.4 | +1.5 | +0.6 | −0.4 | −0.4 | +0.5 | −0.2 | −0.1 | +0.9 | −3.1 |
| 2021 | −2.2 | −2.2 | −1.8 | −1.0 | −1.1 | −0.6 | −0.6 | ±0.0 | −0.5 | −0.3 | +0.5 | +3.4 |
| 2022 | −2.7 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −1.3 | −0.5 | −1.2 | −0.5 | +0.2 | −0.4 | +0.2 | −3.5 | +0.4 |
| 2023 | −2.5 | −1.1 | +0.3 | +1.9 | +1.6 | +2.2 | ±0.0 | −0.1 | +1.1 | ±0.0 | +1.8 | +1.0 |
| 2024 | −1.7 | +1.9 | +2.6 | +1.1 | +1.2 | +0.6 | +2.3 | +1.2 | +0.5 | −1.0 | +0.1 | +4.5 |
| 2025 | +0.1 | +0.3 | +1.1 | +1.0 | +0.1 | +0.6 | +0.2 | ±0.0 | +0.9 | +0.3 | −2.1 | −0.3 |
+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 (Q1047206) · 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.
