Lake · Iran
Urmia Lake
Salt lake in Iran
- Area
- 4,933km²
- Max depth
- 15m
- Average depth
- 0.4m
- Elevation
- 1,267m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 866km
- Volume
- 1.8km³
Urmia Lake is a lake in Iran. It covers 4,933 km². On average it is 0.4 m deep, and 15 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 1,267 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Urmia Lake?
The water is warmest in July, around 27 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. The surface averages 20 °C or more from May to September: comfortable for most swimmers.
The lake usually freezes over for about 30 days a year, from around 25 December to 23 January.
On the shore, afternoons reach 33 °C on average in July and 3 °C in January. The driest month is August (5 mm of rain), the wettest April (47 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (173 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 | — | 3 | -4 | 21 | 5 | 5.9 | 11 |
| February | 4 | 6 | 6 | -2 | 21 | 5 | 7.3 | 12 |
| March | 10 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 32 | 7 | 6.8 | 15 |
| April | 17 | 20 | 17 | 7 | 47 | 9 | 7.7 | 14 |
| May | 22 | 23 | 23 | 12 | 33 | 8 | 9.8 | 13 |
| June | 25 | 26 | 30 | 17 | 12 | 3 | 12.7 | 13 |
| July | 27 | 27 | 33 | 19 | 6 | 1 | 12.6 | 14 |
| August | 27 | 27 | 33 | 19 | 5 | 1 | 12.0 | 13 |
| September | 24 | 26 | 28 | 16 | 5 | 1 | 10.5 | 12 |
| October | 17 | 21 | 20 | 10 | 23 | 4 | 7.6 | 11 |
| November | 8 | 12 | 11 | 2 | 29 | 6 | 5.9 | 10 |
| December | 1 | 4 | 5 | -2 | 23 | 5 | 4.7 | 10 |
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 months before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 52,200 km² of land.
- About 232 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.5 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Urmia Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 4campsites
Shahid Madani
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- 1marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 1viewpoints
Nomads viewpoint
- 2hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Deniz (Bari)
- —fishing spots
- —restaurants and cafés
Towns on the shore
- Sharafkhāneh4,244 people
- ‘Alī Beyglū1,828 people
- Maḩalleh-ye Kāfī ol Malek1,251 people
- Khāneqāh1,060 people
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Urmia Airport (OMH), 51 km in a straight line.
Car hire at VAN airport (Van)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 | 3.1 | 5.9 | 11.9 | 17.4 | 23.3 | 29.8 | 33.3 | 32.8 | 27.7 | 20.1 | 10.9 | 4.8 |
| 2020 | −0.7 | −1.5 | +0.7 | −1.7 | +0.8 | ±0.0 | −0.3 | −2.6 | +1.4 | +1.2 | −0.4 | −0.9 |
| 2021 | +0.7 | +1.8 | −0.7 | +3.4 | +3.1 | +3.7 | +0.4 | +0.2 | +0.2 | −0.7 | +1.3 | +1.2 |
| 2022 | −1.2 | +1.1 | −3.0 | +2.4 | −1.4 | +1.8 | +0.6 | +1.8 | +2.0 | +1.7 | +2.1 | +1.5 |
| 2023 | +0.1 | −1.5 | +2.3 | +1.0 | −0.4 | +0.2 | +0.5 | +1.5 | +0.6 | +0.5 | +3.6 | +3.8 |
| 2024 | +2.6 | +1.0 | −0.4 | +3.7 | −1.2 | +0.8 | +0.2 | +0.9 | +0.1 | −0.5 | +0.7 | +1.0 |
| 2025 | +1.1 | −2.7 | +1.8 | +1.5 | +2.3 | ±0.0 | +0.7 | +2.2 | −0.9 | +1.2 | +3.8 | +1.3 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
Azerbaijan
Turkey
Armenia
IraqAbout 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 (Q199551) · 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.
