Salt lake · Tunisia
Sebkha Ariana
Sabkha in Tunisia
- Area
- 34.0km²
- Average depth
- 2.1m
- Elevation
- -4m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 39km
- Volume
- 0.072km³
Sebkha Ariana is a salt lake in Tunisia. It covers 34.0 km². On average it is 2.1 m deep. Its surface lies 4 m below sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Sebkha Ariana?
The water is warmest in August, around 29 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 12 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from May to October: comfortable for most swimmers.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 34 °C on average in August and 15 °C in January. The driest month is July (7 mm of rain), the wettest December (66 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (87 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 | 12 | 12 | 15 | 8 | 64 | 10 | 4.5 | 19 |
| February | 12 | 13 | 15 | 7 | 50 | 9 | 5.5 | 19 |
| March | 15 | 16 | 18 | 9 | 63 | 8 | 6.9 | 19 |
| April | 18 | 20 | 21 | 11 | 54 | 8 | 8.2 | 18 |
| May | 22 | 24 | 25 | 14 | 35 | 6 | 9.8 | 18 |
| June | 26 | 27 | 30 | 18 | 20 | 3 | 11.4 | 16 |
| July | 28 | 29 | 34 | 22 | 7 | 2 | 11.6 | 16 |
| August | 29 | 29 | 34 | 22 | 21 | 4 | 10.4 | 15 |
| September | 28 | 29 | 29 | 20 | 64 | 10 | 8.1 | 15 |
| October | 23 | 26 | 26 | 17 | 61 | 10 | 6.7 | 16 |
| November | 18 | 21 | 20 | 12 | 57 | 10 | 5.0 | 18 |
| December | 14 | 16 | 16 | 9 | 66 | 10 | 4.3 | 18 |
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 6.6 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 108 km² of land.
- About 0.3 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
Around the shore
What's around Sebkha Ariana
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 2beaches and swimming spots
Plage de Raoued, Plage de Gammarth
- —campsites
- 1boat hire and water-sport clubs
Blanko Kitesurf Beach Club
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- —viewpoints
- 16hotels, B&Bs and chalets
maison yosra, Hôtel Nova Park, The Residence Tunis, Hôtel Ramada Plaza Tunis, Hôtel Karim and 11 more
- —fishing spots
- 55restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Sukrah159,862 people
- Rawad94,961 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Tunis Carthage International Airport (TUN), 8 km in a straight line.
Car hire at TUN airport (Tunis)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 | 14.9 | 15.1 | 17.9 | 21.0 | 25.1 | 30.3 | 33.5 | 33.5 | 29.0 | 25.5 | 20.1 | 16.1 |
| 2020 | +0.5 | +2.4 | −0.5 | ±0.0 | +1.2 | −0.7 | −0.5 | +1.5 | −0.3 | −1.3 | +1.4 | +0.3 |
| 2021 | +0.9 | +2.7 | −0.8 | −0.2 | +0.8 | +1.8 | +2.2 | +3.4 | +3.0 | −1.1 | +0.1 | +0.2 |
| 2022 | −0.5 | +1.2 | −0.7 | −0.2 | +2.3 | +4.7 | +2.6 | +1.5 | +3.9 | +3.2 | +1.9 | +4.4 |
| 2023 | +0.6 | +1.4 | +2.1 | +1.7 | −1.4 | −0.4 | +5.0 | +0.5 | +3.1 | +4.3 | +2.5 | +1.3 |
| 2024 | +1.4 | +1.9 | +2.4 | +1.1 | +1.9 | +1.4 | +1.8 | +1.6 | +1.4 | +1.7 | +2.0 | +0.2 |
| 2025 | +1.7 | +1.4 | +1.4 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +2.7 | +1.1 | −0.2 | +2.0 | +0.1 | +0.3 | +1.2 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Algeria
ItalyAbout 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 (Q2742730) · 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.
