Lake · China
Siling Lake
Salt lake in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China to the north of Xainza
- Area
- 1,750km²
- Average depth
- 28m
- Elevation
- 4,539m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 403km
- Volume
- 49.0km³
Siling Lake is a lake in China. It covers 1,750 km². On average it is 28 m deep. Its surface lies 4,539 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Siling Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 14 °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 118 days a year, from around 14 December to 10 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 18 °C on average in July and -6 °C in January. The driest month is February (1 mm of rain), the wettest July (109 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (126 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 | -21 | 2 | 1 | 8.6 | 21 |
| February | Ice | — | -3 | -19 | 1 | 0 | 8.8 | 23 |
| March | Ice | — | 1 | -11 | 4 | 1 | 9.8 | 22 |
| April | 1 | 3 | 6 | -5 | 7 | 2 | 10.3 | 21 |
| May | 5 | 8 | 11 | -2 | 29 | 7 | 11.3 | 18 |
| June | 10 | 12 | 17 | 3 | 65 | 12 | 11.8 | 16 |
| July | 13 | 14 | 18 | 5 | 109 | 19 | 10.0 | 14 |
| August | 14 | 14 | 17 | 4 | 98 | 18 | 9.4 | 13 |
| September | 13 | 14 | 14 | 1 | 50 | 12 | 10.1 | 14 |
| October | 11 | 12 | 6 | -5 | 9 | 3 | 10.1 | 16 |
| November | 6 | 8 | 0 | -14 | 2 | 1 | 9.6 | 17 |
| December | Ice | — | -5 | -20 | 2 | 0 | 9.3 | 19 |
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
- Its catchment drains 29,077 km² of land.
- Its shoreline is 2.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Siling Lake
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
- —ferry piers
- 2viewpoints
Siling Lake
- —hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Xigaze Peace Airport / Shigatse Air Base (RKZ), 272 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 | -6.2 | -3.1 | 1.0 | 6.0 | 11.4 | 16.8 | 18.3 | 17.3 | 13.8 | 5.9 | -0.2 | -4.7 |
| 2020 | −1.5 | −1.1 | −0.6 | −2.0 | −1.2 | −0.9 | +0.4 | +0.4 | +2.0 | +2.8 | ±0.0 | +0.4 |
| 2021 | +1.7 | +0.8 | +0.6 | −2.0 | +0.2 | −0.8 | +0.1 | +0.1 | −0.9 | +2.4 | −0.1 | −0.6 |
| 2022 | −1.0 | −3.6 | +2.4 | +0.9 | +1.3 | +1.4 | +1.6 | +2.9 | +0.8 | +0.8 | +0.9 | +1.0 |
| 2023 | +1.8 | +1.3 | +0.1 | −0.3 | −1.7 | −0.2 | −0.3 | +0.3 | +0.6 | +0.1 | +1.3 | −0.2 |
| 2024 | −0.5 | −1.6 | +0.6 | −0.5 | +0.7 | +0.6 | +0.7 | +0.5 | +2.1 | +2.5 | +1.5 | +0.9 |
| 2025 | +2.7 | ±0.0 | +0.3 | +0.7 | +0.4 | −0.2 | +1.1 | +1.6 | +1.8 | +1.0 | +0.4 | +1.6 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
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 (Q1404973) · 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.
