Counting down by maximum depth — and only one lake on the planet drops more than a mile straight down.
590 metres deep, making it the deepest lake in Southeast Asia. Its floor sits well below sea level, and its deep water holds almost no oxygen.
594 metres and the deepest lake in the United States. No river flows in or out — every drop of it arrives as rain or snow, which is why it is so clear.
614 metres down, the deepest lake in North America. It freezes so solidly that ice roads are built across it for trucks each winter.
668 metres deep and sitting 1,607 metres up in the Tian Shan mountains. Slightly salty water keeps it from freezing — its name means "warm lake".
706 metres deep and home to more fish species than any other lake — roughly 1,000 kinds of cichlid, most of which live nowhere else on Earth.
836 metres deep on the Chile–Argentina border, the deepest lake in the Americas. Glacier flour turns its water an opaque milky blue.
1,025 metres at its deepest and the largest inland body of water on the planet. It is salty enough that people still argue over whether it is a lake.
1,470 metres deep and 673 km long — the longest freshwater lake there is. Below about 200 metres it holds no oxygen, so nothing lives down there.
1,642 metres — the only lake on Earth more than a mile deep. It is around 25 million years old and holds a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water.
Baikal's floor lies more than a kilometre below sea level, and the rift beneath it is still pulling apart — so it gets a little deeper every year.