page_title: Lake Victoria
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Victoria
caption_attribution_description: English: Landsat 7 Image of Lake Victoria.
context_page_description: Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes.
  The lake was named after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, in his reports—the first Briton to document it. Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River. This expedition was financially sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society.
  With a surface area of approximately 59,947 square kilometres, Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America. In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth largest continental lake, containing about 2,424 cubic kilometres of water. Lake Victoria occupies a shallow depression in Africa. The lake has a maximum depth of between 80 and 84 metres and an average depth of 40 metres. Its catchment area covers 169,858 square kilometres. The lake has a shoreline of 7,142 kilometres when digitized at the 1:25,000 level, with islands constituting 3.7 percent of this length. The lake's area is divided among three countries: Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
context_section_description: Lake Victoria (Nam Lolwe in Luo; 'Nnalubaale in Luganda; Nyanza in some Bantu languages) is one of the African Great Lakes.
  The lake was named after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, in his reports—the first Briton to document it. Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River. This expedition was financially sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society.
  With a surface area of approximately 59,947 square kilometres (23,146 sq mi), Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America. In terms of volume, Lake Victoria is the world's ninth largest continental lake, containing about 2,424 cubic kilometres (1.965×10⁹ acre⋅ft) of water. Lake Victoria occupies a shallow depression in Africa. The lake has a maximum depth of between 80 and 84 metres (262 and 276 ft) and an average depth of 40 metres (130 ft). Its catchment area covers 169,858 square kilometres (65,583 sq mi).  The lake has a shoreline of 7,142 kilometres (4,438 mi) when digitized at the 1:25,000 level, with islands constituting 3.7 percent of this length. The lake's area is divided among three countries: Kenya (6 percent or 4,100 square kilometres or 1,600 square miles), Uganda (45 percent or 31,000 square kilometres or 12,000 square miles), and Tanzania (49 percent or 33,700 square kilometres or 13,000 square miles).
  The lake includes many species of fish that appear nowhere else, especially cichlids. Invasive fish, such as the Nile perch, have driven many endemic species to extinction.
caption: Landsat 7 imagery of Lake Victoria
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