Lake · China
Yamdrok Lake
Lake in Shannan, Tibet, China
- Area
- 567km²
- Average depth
- 28m
- Elevation
- 4,442m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 568km
- Volume
- 16.0km³
Yamdrok Lake is a lake in China. It covers 567 km². On average it is 28 m deep. Its surface lies 4,442 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
How warm is Yamdrok Lake?
The water is warmest in August, around 15 °C at the surface, and coldest in February, around 1 °C. Even at its warmest, the surface stays below 17 °C on average: this is cold water.
It does not normally freeze in winter.
On the shore, afternoons reach 17 °C on average in June and -2 °C in January. The driest month is January (1 mm of rain), the wettest July (136 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (115 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 | 1 | 2 | -2 | -18 | 1 | 0 | 10.0 | 18 |
| February | 1 | 1 | 1 | -13 | 2 | 0 | 10.2 | 20 |
| March | 2 | 3 | 4 | -7 | 4 | 1 | 10.2 | 20 |
| April | 4 | 6 | 8 | -4 | 10 | 2 | 10.0 | 17 |
| May | 7 | 9 | 12 | 0 | 30 | 7 | 10.2 | 15 |
| June | 11 | 12 | 17 | 4 | 70 | 14 | 10.5 | 13 |
| July | 14 | 15 | 16 | 5 | 136 | 21 | 9.2 | 11 |
| August | 15 | 15 | 16 | 4 | 108 | 20 | 9.0 | 10 |
| September | 14 | 15 | 14 | 2 | 48 | 12 | 9.0 | 11 |
| October | 12 | 13 | 9 | -3 | 10 | 2 | 10.3 | 14 |
| November | 7 | 10 | 4 | -7 | 1 | 0 | 10.5 | 16 |
| December | 3 | 5 | 0 | -15 | 1 | 0 | 10.2 | 17 |
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 5.0 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 9,939 km² of land.
- About 102 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 6.7 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Yamdrok Lake
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- 5beaches and swimming spots
- 1campsites
Lake House
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 5viewpoints
Yam drok tso lake view, Yamdrok Lake Viewpoint
- 1hotels, B&Bs and chalets
- —fishing spots
- 2restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Lhasa Gonggar International Airport (LXA), 60 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 | -1.6 | 0.9 | 3.6 | 7.9 | 12.5 | 16.6 | 16.5 | 15.6 | 13.7 | 8.7 | 3.8 | 0.5 |
| 2020 | −1.8 | −1.3 | −0.7 | −1.8 | −1.5 | +0.1 | ±0.0 | +0.4 | +1.2 | +3.6 | −0.1 | +0.7 |
| 2021 | +3.1 | +0.8 | +0.6 | −1.4 | −0.1 | +0.8 | +0.1 | +0.3 | −0.2 | +2.4 | +0.9 | −0.6 |
| 2022 | −1.1 | −3.1 | +3.6 | +2.6 | +1.4 | +0.4 | +1.1 | +1.6 | +1.0 | +1.3 | +0.6 | +1.1 |
| 2023 | +2.3 | +1.4 | −0.6 | −0.3 | −0.9 | +1.0 | −0.2 | +0.8 | +1.0 | +0.5 | ±0.0 | +0.6 |
| 2024 | −0.8 | −1.0 | +0.8 | +0.6 | +0.1 | +1.4 | +0.6 | +0.2 | +1.9 | +1.9 | +1.0 | +1.4 |
| 2025 | +3.3 | +0.7 | +0.8 | +0.6 | +0.3 | +0.3 | +0.9 | +0.9 | +1.0 | +1.3 | +1.0 | +1.4 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
IndiaAbout 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 (Q939604) · 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.
