Crater lake · Indonesia
Lake Toba
Volcanic crater lake located in North Sumatra, Indonesia
- Area
- 1,129km²
- Max depth
- 529m
- Average depth
- 213m
- Elevation
- 900m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 464km
- Volume
- 240km³
Lake Toba is a crater lake in Indonesia. It covers 1,129 km². On average it is 213 m deep, and 529 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 900 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
Water temperature
There is no reliable satellite record of the water temperature for this lake yet.
On the shore, afternoons reach 26 °C on average in May and 24 °C in December. The driest month is February (134 mm of rain), the wettest October (353 mm).
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.
Climate: 1991–2020 average
| Month | Water°C | Water high°C | Air high°C | Air low°C | Rainmm | Rainy daysdays | Sunh/day | Windkm/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | — | — | 24 | 19 | 182 | 21 | 5.1 | 4 |
| February | — | — | 25 | 19 | 134 | 17 | 5.7 | 4 |
| March | — | — | 25 | 19 | 188 | 21 | 5.9 | 4 |
| April | — | — | 26 | 20 | 178 | 23 | 5.6 | 4 |
| May | — | — | 26 | 20 | 222 | 24 | 5.7 | 4 |
| June | — | — | 25 | 19 | 155 | 20 | 6.4 | 4 |
| July | — | — | 25 | 19 | 197 | 21 | 5.8 | 4 |
| August | — | — | 25 | 19 | 235 | 24 | 5.5 | 4 |
| September | — | — | 25 | 19 | 295 | 25 | 4.8 | 4 |
| October | — | — | 25 | 19 | 353 | 28 | 4.4 | 4 |
| November | — | — | 24 | 19 | 293 | 28 | 4.4 | 4 |
| December | — | — | 24 | 19 | 277 | 26 | 4.4 | 4 |
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 57 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 3,725 km² of land.
- About 134 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.9 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Toba
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 3beaches and swimming spots
Beach, Sigugur Beach
- 6campsites
Good place for swim and camp, Binahal Indah Resort, Pulau Silalahi Paropo and 3 more
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- 17ferry piers
Tiga Raja Harbor, Pelabuhan Ferry Ambarita and 15 more
- 59viewpoints
Amazing viewpoint., Nice view, Tombstone viewpoint, View on the lake, Pantai Kasih and 54 more
- 211hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Tabo Cottages, Carolina Hotel, Hotel Silington, Danau Toba Cottages, Atsari and 206 more
- —fishing spots
- 114restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Pangururan34,209 people
- Paropo16,065 people
- Tongging16,000 people
- Parmonangan13,021 people
- Nainggolan11,849 people
- Tomok Bolon10,000 people
- Parapat10,000 people
- Tuktuk Sonak5,000 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Kualanamu International Airport (KNO), 98 km in a straight line.
Car hire at CGK airport (Jakarta)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 | 24.4 | 25.0 | 25.4 | 25.6 | 25.6 | 25.0 | 24.8 | 24.9 | 24.8 | 24.6 | 24.4 | 24.1 |
| 2020 | +0.9 | +0.5 | +0.6 | +0.2 | +0.4 | +0.1 | +0.2 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +0.1 | +0.1 |
| 2021 | −0.3 | +0.5 | ±0.0 | −0.2 | +0.1 | −0.3 | +0.1 | −0.3 | +0.2 | +0.8 | +0.2 | +0.4 |
| 2022 | +0.6 | −0.3 | ±0.0 | ±0.0 | +0.2 | −0.4 | +0.5 | ±0.0 | +0.2 | ±0.0 | ±0.0 | −0.4 |
| 2023 | −0.2 | −0.1 | −0.1 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +0.9 | +0.3 | +0.7 |
| 2024 | +0.3 | +1.1 | +1.0 | +1.1 | +1.1 | +0.6 | +0.8 | +0.3 | +0.4 | +0.8 | +0.1 | +0.8 |
| 2025 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | +0.2 | −0.1 | +0.2 | +0.4 | +1.0 | +0.6 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +0.1 | +0.5 |
+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 (Q183360) · 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.
