A ranking of China's ten largest lakes by normal water-surface area, spanning saline lakes on the Tibetan Plateau, flood-regulating freshwater lakes along the middle and lower Yangtze, steppe lakes in the northeast and inland lakes in the arid northwest. For border lakes only the Chinese portion counts, and the measurement basis is stated for every entry.
China's biggest lake is not a freshwater one. Qinghai Lake covers roughly 4,626 sq km, about 50 percent more than Poyang, the largest freshwater lake, yet its water is too saline to drink. Climate change shows up too: Selin Co in Tibet has kept expanding on glacial meltwater and overtook Namtso as Tibet's largest lake in the early 21st century. Poyang sits at the other extreme, swelling to 4,125 sq km in flood season and shrinking below 1,000 sq km in the dry months. Lake Khanka on the Russian border spans 4,380 sq km in total, but only about a quarter lies in China, which keeps it out of the top ten under this measurement.
| Rank | Lake | Surface area (sq km) | Province or region | Water type | Notes | Measurement basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qinghai Lake | 4625.6 | Qinghai | Saline | China's largest lake and largest inland saline lake; its water level and area have been rising since the 2000s to a two-decade high | 2022 satellite monitoring |
| 2 |
Poyang Lake |
3150 |
| Jiangxi |
| Freshwater |
| China's largest freshwater lake and a key Yangtze-connected basin; it can reach about 4,125 sq km in flood season and fall below 1,000 sq km in the dry season |
| Normal water level |
| 3 | Dongting Lake | 2625 | Hunan | Freshwater | China's second-largest freshwater lake and the main flood-regulating basin of the middle Yangtze; once the country's largest, it has shrunk through siltation and land reclamation | Normal water level |
| 4 | Selin Co | 2391 | Tibet | Saline | Expanded through glacial meltwater and increased rainfall in the early 21st century, overtaking Namtso as Tibet's largest lake; its surroundings form a national black-necked crane reserve | Satellite monitoring, around 2014 |
| 5 | Hulun Lake | 2339 | Inner Mongolia | Brackish | The largest lake in northeast China, also called Dalai Lake; its area swings between roughly 1,750 and 2,339 sq km with rainfall on the Hulunbuir grassland | Maximum flood-season area |
| 6 | Lake Tai | 2338 | Jiangsu and Zhejiang | Freshwater | China's third-largest freshwater lake and a shared water source for the Yangtze Delta metro region; including islands the full lake covers about 2,427.8 sq km, with an average depth under 2 m | Normal surface area |
| 7 | Namtso | 2015 | Tibet | Saline | Sitting at about 4,718 m, one of the highest large lakes on Earth and one of Tibetan Buddhism's three holy lakes; it too has grown on glacial meltwater | Satellite monitoring, around 2020 |
| 8 | Bosten Lake | 1646 | Xinjiang | Freshwater | China's largest inland freshwater lake, in the Yanqi Basin; fed mainly by the Kaidu River and drained by the Peacock River | Maximum flood-season area |
| 9 | Hongze Lake | 1597 | Jiangsu | Freshwater | China's fourth-largest freshwater lake and the main regulating basin of the lower Huai River; its bed sits above the plain to the east, making it a classic perched lake | Normal storage level |
| 10 | Nansi Lake | 1266 | Shandong | Freshwater | A chain of four connected lakes — Nanyang, Dushan, Zhaoyang and Weishan — commonly called Weishan Lake; a key storage basin on the eastern route of the South–North Water Transfer Project | Normal surface area |
Wikipedia, Poyang Lake, retrieved 2026-08-04.
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