Lake · China
Qinghai Lake
Lake in Qinghai, China
- Area
- 4,267km²
- Max depth
- 21m
- Average depth
- 17m
- Elevation
- 3,194m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 434km
- Volume
- 71.6km³
Qinghai Lake is a lake in China. It covers 4,267 km². On average it is 17 m deep, and 21 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 3,194 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Qinghai Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 16 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. Even at its warmest, the surface stays below 17 °C on average: this is cold water.
The lake usually freezes over for about 116 days a year, from around 14 December to 8 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 19 °C on average in July and -6 °C in January. The driest month is January (2 mm of rain), the wettest July (97 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (98 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 | — | -6 | -22 | 2 | 0 | 7.7 | 14 |
| February | Ice | — | -1 | -17 | 3 | 1 | 7.8 | 16 |
| March | Ice | — | 4 | -6 | 6 | 2 | 8.3 | 20 |
| April | 2 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 16 | 4 | 8.5 | 20 |
| May | 7 | 10 | 13 | 4 | 45 | 10 | 8.3 | 18 |
| June | 12 | 14 | 17 | 8 | 75 | 14 | 7.5 | 15 |
| July | 15 | 16 | 19 | 11 | 97 | 16 | 7.6 | 15 |
| August | 16 | 16 | 18 | 11 | 94 | 16 | 7.3 | 14 |
| September | 14 | 15 | 14 | 6 | 60 | 12 | 6.7 | 14 |
| October | 11 | 13 | 8 | 0 | 15 | 4 | 7.4 | 16 |
| November | 6 | 8 | 0 | -12 | 4 | 1 | 7.4 | 15 |
| December | Ice | — | -6 | -22 | 2 | 0 | 7.6 | 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 81 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 29,605 km² of land.
- About 28 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Qinghai Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 2campsites
Camping Qinhai Lake, Campground
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- 2ferry piers
- 4viewpoints
Sunrise Viewpoint
- 5hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Tibetan tents, Hotel
- —fishing spots
- 5restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Xining Caojiabao International Airport (XNN), 170 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 | -6.0 | -1.4 | 3.6 | 9.1 | 13.3 | 16.7 | 18.9 | 18.3 | 14.0 | 7.8 | 0.4 | -5.8 |
| 2020 | +0.1 | −0.2 | −0.2 | −2.1 | −0.7 | −0.1 | −0.8 | +0.5 | +0.8 | −0.2 | +0.9 | −0.9 |
| 2021 | −0.8 | +1.6 | +1.2 | −2.5 | −0.1 | +0.5 | +0.9 | −0.8 | +1.0 | +0.4 | −2.0 | −0.6 |
| 2022 | +0.1 | −4.3 | +3.2 | ±0.0 | +0.8 | +0.6 | +1.5 | +2.1 | −0.8 | +0.1 | +1.5 | −0.1 |
| 2023 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | +0.5 | −0.4 | −0.7 | −0.2 | +0.6 | −0.1 | +1.6 | −0.2 | +1.7 | +1.7 |
| 2024 | +0.7 | −0.4 | +0.3 | +1.0 | +0.8 | −0.8 | +0.7 | +1.8 | +2.1 | +0.7 | +1.0 | −0.8 |
| 2025 | +0.5 | −1.6 | −2.2 | −0.4 | +1.5 | −0.6 | +1.9 | ±0.0 | +1.8 | +1.0 | −0.4 | +2.6 |
+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 (Q201294) · 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.
