List of bodies of water by salinity

This is a list of bodies of water by salinity that is limited to natural bodies of water that have a stable salinity above 0.05%, at or below which water is considered fresh.

Water salinity often varies by location and season, particularly with hypersaline lakes in arid areas, so the salinity figures in the table below should be interpreted as an approximate indicator.

Salinity, g/100 g (%)	Name	Type	Region or countries	Refs
20.0–50.0	Lake Elton	salt lake	Astrakhan Oblast, Russia	[1]
43.3	Gaet'ale Pond	salt lake	Ethiopia	[2][3]
40.0	Lake Retba	salt lake	Senegal	[citation needed]
35.0	Garabogazköl	lagoon	Turkmenistan	[4]
34.8	Lake Assal	salt lake	Djibouti	[5]
33.8	Don Juan Pond	salt lake	Antarctica	[6]
33.7	Dead Sea	salt lake	Israel, Jordan, Palestine	[7]
32.4	Lake Tuz (Tuz Gölü)	salt lake	Turkey	[8]
31.7	Great Salt Lake, North Arm	salt lake	Great Basin, Utah, United States	[9]
30.0	Lake Baskunchak	salt lake	Astrakhan Oblast, Russia	[10]
30.0	Lake Sărat	salt lake	Brăila, Romania	[11][12]
8.50–28.0	Lake Urmia	salt lake	Iran	[13]
27.0	Deep Lake	salt lake	Antarctica	[14]
18.0	Little Manitou Lake	salt lake	Canada	[15]
15.3	Lake Pikrolimni	salt lake	Greece	[16]
0.00–14.6	Lake Vanda	meromictic lake	Antarctica	[17]
14.2	Great Salt Lake, South Arm	salt lake	Great Basin, Utah, United States	[9]
12.0	Lake Abert	salt lake	Great Basin, Oregon, United States	[18]
9.50	Lake Techirghiol	salt lake	Romania	[19]
8.80	Mono Lake	salt lake	Great Basin, California, United States	[20] (as of 2015)
6.60	Hamelin Pool	lagoon	Australia	[21]
4.40	Salton Sea	salt lake	Great Basin, California, United States	[22]
4.10–4.50	Great Bitter Lake	salt lake	Egypt	[23]
3.80	Mediterranean Sea	mediterranean sea	Southern Europe, Levant, North Africa	[24]
3.60–4.10	Red Sea	mediterranean sea	Egypt, Sudan, Arabian Peninsula, Horn of Africa	[25]
3.00–4.00	Lake Natron	salt lake	Tanzania	[26]
3.40–3.60	World Ocean	ocean	Worldwide	[27]
3.50+	Lake Eyre	endorheic lake	Australia	[28][n 1]
3.40	Lough Hyne	marine lake	Republic of Ireland	[29]
2.80–3.20	Beaufort Sea	marginal sea	North of Alaska and Canada	[30]
2.20	Sea of Marmara	mediterranean sea	Between the Balkan Peninsula and the Anatolian peninsula	[31]
3.17	Chilika Lake	lagoon	India	[32]
1.30–2.30	Black Sea	mediterranean sea	Between Europe and Asia - Balkan Peninsula, Eastern Europe, Anatolia, Caucasus	[33]
2.30	Lake Van	salt lake	Turkey	[34]
1.40	Qinghai Lake	salt lake	China	[35]
1.25	Caspian Sea	salt lake	Eastern Europe/ Western Asia	[36]
1.14	Sarygamysh Lake	salt lake	Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan	[37]
1.00–1.20	Sea of Azov	mediterranean sea	Ukraine, Russia	[38][39]
0.8–1.0	Baltic Sea	marginal sea	Northern Europe	[40][n 2]
0.59	Issyk Kul	salt lake	Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia	[41][n 3]

See also

• List of brackish bodies of water

References

1. "Lake Elton Biosphere Reserve, Russian Federation". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
2. Perez, Eduardo; Chebude, Yonas (April 2017). "Chemical Analysis of Gaet'ale, a Hypersaline Pond in Danakil Depression (Ethiopia): New Record for the Most Saline Water Body on Earth". Aquatic Geochemistry. 23 (2): 109–117. Bibcode:2017AqGeo..23..109P. doi:10.1007/s10498-017-9312-z. S2CID 132715553.
3. "Guinness World Records".
4. Aladin, Nicolai; Plotnikov, Igor (28 June 2004). Lake Basin Management Initiative - The Caspian Sea (PDF) (Report). p. 6. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
5. Woodward, Susan L. "Saline Lakes". Biomes of the World. Radford, Virginia: Department of Geospatial Science, Radford University. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
6. Hammer, U.T. (1986). Saline Lake Ecosystems of the World. Springer. p. 109. ISBN 9789061935353. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
7. Goetz, P.W. (ed.) The New Encyclopædia Britannica (15th ed.). Vol. 3, p. 937. Chicago, 1986
8. "Lake Tuz Special Environmental Protection Area (SEPA) - UNESCO World Heritage Centre". Unesco World Heritage Center. 2020. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
9. White, James S.; Null, Sarah E.; Tarboton, David (2004). "More than Meets the Eye: Managing Salinity in Great Salt Lake, Utah" (PDF). LakeLine (Fall 2004): 25–29. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
10. "Bogdinsko-Baskunchaksky - Russian Nature Reserve".
11. "About Lacu Sărat".
12. "Observator on Lacu Sărat".
13. "Lake Urmia". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2012. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
14. Williams, Timothy J; Allen, Michelle A; DeMaere, Matthew Z; Kyrpides, Nikos C; Tringe, Susannah G; Woyke, Tanja; Cavicchioli, Ricardo (20 February 2014). "Microbial ecology of an Antarctic hypersaline lake: genomic assessment of ecophysiology among dominant haloarchaea". The ISME Journal. 8 (8). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 1645–1658. Bibcode:2014ISMEJ...8.1645W. doi:10.1038/ismej.2014.18. ISSN 1751-7362. PMC 4817606. PMID 24553470.
15. Little Manitou Lake. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
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18. Solute Balance at Abert and Summer Lakes, South-Central Oregon
19. "Lacul Techirghiol". 22 October 2021.
20. Willever, Katherine (1 August 2016). Biogeochemistry of a Saline, Alkaline, Terminal Lake Ecosystem in Transition; Walker Lake, Nevada. UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones (Thesis). doi:10.34917/9302977.
21. Suosaari, Erica; Reid, Pamela; Playford, Phillip; et al. (2016). "New multi-scale perspectives on the stromatolites of Shark Bay, Western Australia". Scientific Reports. 6 (20557): 20557. Bibcode:2016NatSR...620557S. doi:10.1038/srep20557. PMC 4738353. PMID 26838605.
22. "The Salton Sea". The Salton Sea Authority. October 1997.
23. El-Serehy, Hamed A.; Abdallah, Hala S.; Al-Misned, Fahad A.; Irshad, Rizwan; Al-Farraj, Saleh A.; Almalki, Esam S. (2018). "Aquatic ecosystem health and trophic status classification of the Bitter Lakes along the main connecting link between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean". Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences. 25 (2): 204–212. Bibcode:2018SJBS...25..204E. doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2017.12.004. ISSN 1319-562X. PMC 5816010. PMID 29472766.
24. "Ocean salinity". Science Learning Hub. Retrieved 2 July 2017.
25. A. Anati, David (March 1999). "The salinity of hypersaline brines: Concepts and misconceptions". International Journal of Salt Lake Research. 8: 55–70. doi:10.1023/A:1009059827435.
26. The Biology and Culture of Tilapias: Proceedings of the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management, p.38
27. "Ocean salinity".
28. "Floods of Lake Eyre". k26press.
29. "Nutrient and Ecosystem Dynamics in Ireland's Only Marine Nature Reserve (NEIDIN)" (PDF).
30. "Beaufort Sea". Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Russian).
31. "Sea of Marmara". 25 March 2021.
32. Indian Journal of Marine Sciences - Variation of Water Quality of Chilika Lake, Orissa
33. Black Sea - Encyclopedia of Ukraine
34. Yama, Tomonaga (22 March 2017). "Porewater salinity reveals past lake-level changes in Lake Van, the Earth's largest soda lake". Scientific Reports. 7 (7): 313. Bibcode:2017NatSR...7..313T. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-00371-w. PMC 5428207. PMID 28331216.
35. Zhang, Renyi; Ludwig, Arne; Zhang, Cunfang; Tong, Chao; Li, Guogang; Tang, Yongtao; Peng, Zuogang; Zhao, Kai (6 May 2015). "Local adaptation of Gymnocypris przewalskii (Cyprinidae) on the Tibetan Plateau". Scientific Reports. 5 (1): 9780. Bibcode:2015NatSR...5E9780Z. doi:10.1038/srep09780. PMC 4421831. PMID 25944748.
36. Lake Basin Management Initiative - The Caspian Sea (2004)
37. Orlovsky, Leah; Matsrafi, Offir; Orlovsky, Nikolai; Kouznetsov, Michael (2014). "Sarykamysh Lake: Collector of Drainage Water – the Past, the Present, and the Future". The Turkmen Lake Altyn Asyr and Water Resources in Turkmenistan. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. Vol. 28. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. pp. 107–140. doi:10.1007/698_2012_191. ISBN 978-3-642-38606-0.
38. "Climatological Atlas of the Sea of Azov". National Oceanographic Data Centre. Retrieved 6 January 2008.
39. Kosarev, Andrey G.; Kostianoy, Aleksey N. (2007). The Black Sea Environment. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-74291-3.
40. Long Term Temperature & Salinity Records from the Baltic Sea Transition Zone
41. Facts about Kyrgyzstan (in Russian)

Notes

1. When full, Lake Eyre salinity is the same as oceans; due to a 45cm thick salt layer when dry, it rises as water evaporates.
2. Some bays have considerably lower salinity.
3. Deeper water areas of lake Issyk Kul have higher salinity

Bibliography

• Johanna Laybourn-Parry; Jemma L. Wadham (2014). Antarctic Lakes. Oxford University Press. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-0-19-967049-9.