Lake · Ethiopia
Lake Zway
One of the Rift Valley lakes of Ethiopia
- Area
- 412km²
- Max depth
- 9m
- Average depth
- 14m
- Elevation
- 1,636m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 150km
- Volume
- 5.7km³
Lake Zway is a lake in Ethiopia. It covers 412 km². On average it is 14 m deep, and 9 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 1,636 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Lake Zway?
The water is warmest in April, around 24 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 19 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from February to November: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 29 °C on average in March and 23 °C in August. The driest month is January (10 mm of rain), the wettest July (196 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (119 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 | 19 | 20 | 27 | 12 | 10 | 3 | 10.1 | 14 |
| February | 21 | 22 | 29 | 13 | 19 | 4 | 10.3 | 15 |
| March | 23 | 24 | 29 | 15 | 48 | 10 | 9.6 | 13 |
| April | 24 | 24 | 28 | 15 | 82 | 16 | 8.6 | 12 |
| May | 23 | 24 | 28 | 16 | 92 | 18 | 8.6 | 10 |
| June | 22 | 22 | 26 | 15 | 106 | 24 | 7.6 | 10 |
| July | 20 | 21 | 23 | 14 | 196 | 30 | 5.4 | 12 |
| August | 21 | 22 | 23 | 14 | 194 | 30 | 5.3 | 12 |
| September | 23 | 23 | 24 | 14 | 120 | 25 | 7.0 | 8 |
| October | 23 | 23 | 25 | 12 | 43 | 11 | 9.4 | 13 |
| November | 21 | 22 | 26 | 11 | 22 | 5 | 9.9 | 15 |
| December | 19 | 20 | 26 | 11 | 12 | 3 | 10.2 | 15 |
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 3.0 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 7,296 km² of land.
- About 61 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Lake Zway
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- —campsites
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- 1ferry piers
Ziway
- —viewpoints
- 10hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Befikadu Hotel, Green Valley Resort, Haile Resort, Jinka Hotel, Jemaneh Hotel (Behailu Tilahun and 5 more
- —fishing spots
- 4restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Ziway90,500 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD), 108 km in a straight line.
OpenStreetMap 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 | 27.3 | 29.0 | 29.3 | 28.0 | 27.6 | 25.7 | 23.4 | 22.7 | 23.6 | 24.9 | 25.5 | 26.0 |
| 2020 | −0.8 | ±0.0 | +0.1 | −0.7 | −2.9 | −2.1 | −1.6 | −1.0 | −1.0 | −1.7 | −1.2 | −0.8 |
| 2021 | −1.7 | −1.2 | +0.7 | −0.1 | −1.7 | +1.0 | −0.2 | +0.4 | −0.5 | −1.1 | −0.2 | −0.5 |
| 2022 | −1.0 | −0.6 | +0.3 | ±0.0 | +1.5 | +0.3 | −0.6 | −0.3 | −0.4 | −0.5 | +0.7 | +0.8 |
| 2023 | +0.5 | +0.1 | −2.1 | −1.2 | −2.7 | −0.6 | +0.1 | +1.0 | +1.0 | +0.7 | −2.3 | −0.8 |
| 2024 | −0.3 | −0.3 | +0.1 | −0.1 | +0.4 | +0.9 | −0.2 | −0.1 | −0.1 | −1.8 | −1.8 | −0.7 |
| 2025 | −0.1 | +1.2 | −0.2 | +0.8 | −0.3 | +1.4 | +0.4 | +0.1 | −0.7 | −1.8 | −0.7 | +0.3 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Nearby
More lakes nearby
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 (Q231817) · 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.
