Lake · Kazakhstan
Lake Zaysan
Lake in eastern Kazakhstan
- Area
- 4,194km²
- Max depth
- 15m
- Average depth
- 13m
- Elevation
- 388m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 1,566km
- Volume
- 53.0km³
Lake Zaysan is a lake in Kazakhstan. It covers 4,194 km². On average it is 13 m deep, and 15 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 388 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Zaysan?
The water is warmest in July, around 23 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from June to August: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 148 days a year, from around 12 November to 8 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 30 °C on average in July and -9 °C in January. The driest month is February (16 mm of rain), the wettest July (31 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (184 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 | Ice | — | -9 | -18 | 19 | 6 | 6.5 | 14 |
| February | Ice | — | -5 | -15 | 16 | 5 | 8.4 | 14 |
| March | Ice | — | 5 | -5 | 20 | 5 | 8.7 | 16 |
| April | 3 | 8 | 15 | 4 | 24 | 6 | 8.5 | 16 |
| May | 13 | 17 | 22 | 10 | 24 | 6 | 10.8 | 16 |
| June | 21 | 22 | 28 | 17 | 27 | 8 | 11.2 | 14 |
| July | 23 | 23 | 30 | 19 | 31 | 8 | 10.4 | 13 |
| August | 22 | 23 | 28 | 17 | 21 | 6 | 10.5 | 13 |
| September | 17 | 20 | 21 | 10 | 21 | 5 | 8.8 | 13 |
| October | 9 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 28 | 7 | 5.8 | 14 |
| November | Ice | — | 1 | -6 | 28 | 8 | 4.0 | 14 |
| December | Ice | — | -7 | -14 | 21 | 7 | 4.6 | 14 |
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 2.1 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 143,970 km² of land.
- About 802 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 6.8 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Zaysan
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 34beaches and swimming spots
- 8campsites
- 1boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 2marinas and slipways
- 5ferry piers
Vasïlevkanıñ sol jağalaw, Vasïlevkanıñ oñ jağalawı
- —viewpoints
- 36hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Ayuda, Milada and 34 more
- 1fishing spots
- 4restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Tughyl6,696 people
- Novaya Bukhtarma6,026 people
- Ulken Naryn5,236 people
- Pervorossiyskoye2,583 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Burqin Kanas Airport (KJI), 204 km in a straight line.
Car hire at ALA airport (Almaty)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 | -8.9 | -5.3 | 4.6 | 15.1 | 22.1 | 28.0 | 29.7 | 28.1 | 20.9 | 11.5 | 1.2 | -6.6 |
| 2020 | +2.7 | +4.6 | ±0.0 | +4.8 | +3.0 | −1.9 | −1.3 | −0.5 | −1.9 | −2.5 | −0.8 | −2.8 |
| 2021 | −1.8 | +3.5 | −0.9 | −1.3 | +1.6 | −2.3 | +1.3 | +0.2 | +0.4 | −1.3 | −1.5 | +2.7 |
| 2022 | +3.4 | +1.6 | −1.3 | +1.9 | +3.5 | +1.1 | +0.1 | −1.1 | +2.0 | −0.2 | −1.3 | −3.3 |
| 2023 | −1.0 | +3.1 | +2.3 | −3.0 | −2.6 | +1.2 | +2.1 | −0.1 | −1.6 | +2.5 | +1.8 | +0.7 |
| 2024 | +2.6 | −3.4 | −1.2 | −0.6 | +1.2 | +0.5 | +0.3 | +2.1 | −3.0 | +0.1 | +1.3 | +1.2 |
| 2025 | +3.5 | +0.8 | −0.6 | +2.1 | +1.6 | +2.8 | +1.7 | −1.6 | −0.8 | −2.7 | +0.5 | +2.2 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
China
MongoliaAbout 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 (Q216621) · 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.
