Reservoir · Ghana
Lake Volta
World's largest man-made reservoir by surface area, located in Ghana
- Area
- 6,045km²
- Max depth
- 75m
- Average depth
- 24m
- Elevation
- 75m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 5,492km
- Volume
- 148km³
Lake Volta is a reservoir in Ghana. It covers 6,045 km². On average it is 24 m deep, and 75 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 75 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Volta?
The water is warmest in May, around 27 °C at the surface, and coldest in June, around 27 °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 February and 28 °C in July. The driest month is January (16 mm of rain), the wettest June (178 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (86 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 | 27 | 27 | 33 | 22 | 16 | 5 | 6.6 | 9 |
| February | 27 | 27 | 34 | 24 | 35 | 10 | 5.9 | 10 |
| March | 27 | 27 | 33 | 24 | 84 | 20 | 6.2 | 11 |
| April | 27 | 27 | 32 | 24 | 104 | 25 | 6.5 | 11 |
| May | 27 | 27 | 30 | 24 | 140 | 27 | 6.3 | 11 |
| June | 27 | 27 | 29 | 23 | 178 | 28 | 5.2 | 11 |
| July | 27 | 27 | 28 | 22 | 150 | 25 | 4.7 | 12 |
| August | 27 | 27 | 29 | 21 | 98 | 23 | 4.2 | 13 |
| September | 27 | 27 | 29 | 22 | 173 | 27 | 4.8 | 10 |
| October | 27 | 27 | 29 | 23 | 160 | 28 | 6.3 | 9 |
| November | 27 | 27 | 30 | 23 | 50 | 14 | 7.2 | 8 |
| December | 27 | 27 | 32 | 23 | 17 | 5 | 6.9 | 8 |
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 3.4 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 404,375 km² of land.
- About 1,372 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 19.9 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Volta
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
Towns on the shore
- Yegyi30,311 people
- Dambai22,445 people
- Kete Krachi11,000 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Kotoka International Airport (ACC), 105 km in a straight line.
Car hire at ACC airport (Accra)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 | 33.2 | 33.8 | 32.6 | 31.7 | 30.4 | 28.6 | 28.2 | 28.8 | 29.0 | 29.1 | 30.5 | 32.2 |
| 2020 | ±0.0 | +1.5 | +0.7 | +1.1 | +0.8 | −0.1 | −0.3 | +0.9 | +0.7 | +0.4 | −0.2 | +0.3 |
| 2021 | +0.2 | −0.4 | −1.1 | ±0.0 | +1.6 | +2.3 | +1.3 | +1.2 | −0.5 | −0.2 | −0.9 | −0.7 |
| 2022 | −0.6 | +0.5 | −0.2 | −1.1 | −0.7 | −0.4 | −0.1 | −0.5 | −1.0 | −0.1 | −0.8 | −2.0 |
| 2023 | −1.3 | +0.1 | +0.2 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | +0.2 | +0.2 | −0.2 | −0.1 | +0.3 | −0.7 | −0.6 |
| 2024 | +0.3 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +0.5 | +0.7 | +1.0 | +1.2 | −0.1 | +0.3 | +0.5 |
| 2025 | +0.4 | −0.4 | +0.7 | +0.8 | +0.7 | +0.6 | +0.9 | +1.3 | +1.2 | +0.3 | +1.0 | −0.5 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Togo
BeninAbout 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 (Q201679) · 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.
