IASNOVA Interactive Atlas · Geography Through Maps
THE SOUTH AMERICAN LAKES ATLAS
30 major lakes, lagoons & reservoirs — hover or tap a marker to explore.
Selected major water bodies · International boundaries shown for orientation · areas and reservoir extents are approximate and may vary with water level
Lakes of South America: What the Map Reveals
South America’s lakes tell the story of the continent’s physical geography. The Andes and Altiplano hold ancient high-elevation lakes and fragile terminal basins. Patagonia contains deep, glacier-carved lakes that drain to both the Pacific and Atlantic. The Atlantic lowlands contain vast coastal lagoons, while the Amazon creates floodplain lakes whose shorelines rise and fall with the river.
The word lake can hide important differences. Maracaibo is more accurately a brackish tidal estuary, Lagoa dos Patos is a coastal lagoon, Poopó is an intermittent terminal lake, and Itaipu is a human-made reservoir. Use the category filters and index to learn both location and classification.
Complete Reference: All 30 Water Bodies
Open any entry for its countries, classification, dimensions, drainage and defining geographic fact.
Andean & Altiplano
Lake Titicaca Peru · Bolivia
Type: Natural freshwater · high-altitude tectonic lake
Size / depth: About 8,300–8,400 km²; elevation about 3,810 m; maximum depth about 283 m
Drainage / basin: Altiplano basin; the Desaguadero River carries a small share of its outflow toward Lake Poopó
Why it matters: South America’s largest unambiguously freshwater lake and the highest of the world’s great navigable lakes. It is also an ancient lake with exceptional cultural importance.
Lake Junín / Chinchaycocha Peru
Type: Natural freshwater · high Andean shallow lake
Size / depth: Roughly 530 km²; elevation about 4,080 m
Drainage / basin: Headwaters of the Mantaro River in the Amazon drainage system
Why it matters: Peru’s largest lake wholly within the country. Its extensive reed marshes support the flightless, critically endangered Junín grebe.
Lake Poopó Bolivia
Type: Intermittent saline lake · terminal Altiplano basin
Size / depth: Historically up to roughly 2,500 km², but extremely shallow and variable
Drainage / basin: Receives water from Titicaca through the Desaguadero system; no outlet to the sea
Why it matters: Once Bolivia’s second-largest lake, Poopó dried almost completely in 2015 after drought, diversion and long-term water stress. Wet years can partially refill its basin.
Lake Uru Uru Bolivia
Type: Shallow saline lake and wetland
Size / depth: Highly variable; historically more than 200 km² during wetter phases
Drainage / basin: Desaguadero–Poopó system near the city of Oruro
Why it matters: A young, shallow lake that expanded after changes in the Desaguadero River during the twentieth century; drought and pollution have greatly reduced its open water.
Lake Tota Colombia
Type: Natural freshwater · high Andean lake
Size / depth: About 55 km²; elevation about 3,015 m; maximum depth near 60 m
Drainage / basin: Drains eastward through the Upía River into the Orinoco system
Why it matters: Colombia’s largest natural lake. It supplies water to surrounding communities and supports farming, aquaculture and a high-altitude wetland ecosystem.
Lake La Cocha / Guamués Colombia
Type: Natural freshwater · Andean valley lake
Size / depth: About 40 km²; elevation roughly 2,680 m
Drainage / basin: Guamués River → Putumayo River → Amazon
Why it matters: A Ramsar wetland surrounded by cloud forest and páramo. Its outlet ultimately joins the Amazon through the Putumayo–Içá system.
Patagonian glacial
General Carrera / Buenos Aires Lake Chile · Argentina
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 1,850 km²; maximum depth about 586 m
Drainage / basin: Drains west through Bertrand Lake and the Baker River to the Pacific
Why it matters: The largest lake in Chile and a major transboundary Patagonian lake. Wave erosion created the celebrated Marble Caves on its Chilean shore.
Lago Argentino Argentina
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 1,415 km²; surface elevation only about 187 m
Drainage / basin: Santa Cruz River → Atlantic Ocean
Why it matters: Argentina’s largest freshwater lake. Arms of the lake receive ice and meltwater from Perito Moreno, Upsala and other glaciers of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
Lake Viedma Argentina
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 1,088 km²; roughly 80 km long
Drainage / basin: La Leona River connects it southward to Lago Argentino
Why it matters: Fed by Viedma Glacier, the lake forms the northern great-water gateway of Los Glaciares National Park.
O’Higgins / San Martín Lake Chile · Argentina
Type: Natural freshwater · deep glacial lake
Size / depth: About 1,013 km²; maximum depth about 836 m
Drainage / basin: Pascua River → Pacific Ocean
Why it matters: The deepest lake in the Americas. Glacial rock flour gives its long, fjord-like arms a milky turquoise colour.
Nahuel Huapi Lake Argentina
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 557 km²; maximum depth about 464 m
Drainage / basin: Limay River → Negro River → Atlantic Ocean
Why it matters: The many-armed lake anchors Argentina’s oldest national park and the city of San Carlos de Bariloche.
Lake Llanquihue Chile
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 860 km²; maximum depth more than 300 m
Drainage / basin: Maullín River → Pacific Ocean
Why it matters: One of Chile’s largest lakes, framed by the Osorno and Calbuco volcanoes and ringed by towns shaped by Mapuche and German-Chilean history.
Todos los Santos Lake Chile
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial-volcanic lake
Size / depth: About 179 km²; maximum depth about 337 m
Drainage / basin: Petrohué River → Reloncaví Estuary → Pacific
Why it matters: Lava and glacial deposits helped shape this emerald lake inside Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park.
Lake Ranco Chile
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial lake
Size / depth: About 442 km²
Drainage / basin: Bueno River → Pacific Ocean
Why it matters: A large island-dotted lake of Chile’s Los Ríos Region; its waters leave through the Bueno River.
Lake Villarrica Chile
Type: Natural freshwater · glacial-volcanic lake
Size / depth: About 176 km²; maximum depth about 165 m
Drainage / basin: Toltén River → Pacific Ocean
Why it matters: The lake sits below active Villarrica Volcano and links the tourism centres of Pucón and Villarrica.
Coastal lagoons
Lake Maracaibo Venezuela
Type: Brackish tidal estuary / semi-enclosed bay commonly called a lake
Size / depth: About 13,200 km²; connected to the Caribbean
Drainage / basin: Catatumbo and many other rivers → Gulf of Venezuela
Why it matters: If counted as a lake, it is South America’s largest by area. Its Catatumbo region is Earth’s leading lightning hotspot, and the basin has long been central to Venezuela’s oil industry.
Lagoa dos Patos Brazil
Type: Coastal barrier lagoon · brackish estuarine system
Size / depth: About 10,000–10,100 km²; nearly 300 km long
Drainage / basin: Jacuí–Guaíba and Camaquã rivers; outlet at Rio Grande to the Atlantic
Why it matters: The largest coastal lagoon in South America. A long sand barrier separates most of it from the Atlantic Ocean.
Lagoa Mirim / Laguna Merín Brazil · Uruguay
Type: Transboundary coastal freshwater lagoon
Size / depth: About 3,750 km²
Drainage / basin: São Gonçalo Channel links it with Lagoa dos Patos
Why it matters: A vast shared lagoon behind the Atlantic coastal barrier, forming part of an internationally important wetland and agricultural landscape.
Lowland & floodplain
Lake Valencia / Tacarigua Venezuela
Type: Natural freshwater · closed-basin lake
Size / depth: Roughly 350 km²; area changes with managed water levels
Drainage / basin: Endorheic basin between the Coastal Range and Serranía del Interior
Why it matters: Venezuela’s largest natural inland lake with no outlet to the sea, surrounded by the densely populated and industrialised Valencia–Maracay corridor.
Lake Ypacaraí Paraguay
Type: Natural freshwater · shallow lowland lake
Size / depth: About 60 km²; generally only a few metres deep
Drainage / basin: Salado River → Paraguay River
Why it matters: Paraguay’s best-known recreational lake, close to Asunción. Nutrient pollution and algal blooms are major management challenges.
Lake Ypoá Paraguay
Type: Shallow natural lake and wetland complex
Size / depth: Open-water area varies greatly with rainfall and seasonal flooding
Drainage / basin: Wetland system between the Paraguay and Tebicuary river basins
Why it matters: A remote mosaic of shallow lakes, marshes and seasonally flooded grasslands protected within Ypoá National Park.
Lake Tefé Brazil
Type: Amazon floodplain / ria lake
Size / depth: A long, seasonally changing lake roughly 40 km across its main axis
Drainage / basin: Connected to the Solimões–Amazon flood pulse near the city of Tefé
Why it matters: Its shoreline expands and contracts with the Amazon’s annual flood cycle, demonstrating why tropical floodplain lakes cannot be understood as fixed blue shapes.
Lake Amanã Brazil
Type: Amazon blackwater floodplain lake
Size / depth: Roughly 45 km long; area changes seasonally
Drainage / basin: Linked by floodplain channels to the Japurá and Solimões systems
Why it matters: A major lake within the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve, part of one of the world’s largest connected protected tropical-forest landscapes.
Volcanic crater
Quilotoa Crater Lake Ecuador
Type: Volcanic caldera lake
Size / depth: About 3 km across; depth commonly estimated near 250 m
Drainage / basin: Closed crater basin with no surface outlet
Why it matters: A mineral-rich turquoise lake occupying a caldera formed by a major eruption roughly eight centuries ago.
Cuicocha Lake Ecuador
Type: Volcanic caldera lake
Size / depth: About 3 km wide, with two prominent central islands
Drainage / basin: Closed caldera below Cotacachi Volcano
Why it matters: Its name is often translated from Kichwa as “lake of guinea pigs,” referring to the shape of its islands.
Major reservoirs
Guri Reservoir Venezuela
Type: Hydroelectric reservoir · Caroní River
Size / depth: Roughly 4,250 km² at high operating levels
Drainage / basin: Impounded by Guri / Simón Bolívar Dam
Why it matters: One of the world’s largest artificial lakes, created to power a hydroelectric complex fundamental to Venezuela’s electricity system.
Itaipu Reservoir Brazil · Paraguay
Type: Hydroelectric reservoir · Paraná River
Size / depth: About 1,350 km²; water volume about 29 billion m³
Drainage / basin: Impounded by Itaipu Dam
Why it matters: A transboundary reservoir powering one of the world’s great hydroelectric plants and extending about 170 km upstream along the Paraná.
Sobradinho Reservoir Brazil
Type: Multipurpose reservoir · São Francisco River
Size / depth: Up to roughly 4,200 km², varying with operating level
Drainage / basin: Impounded by Sobradinho Dam
Why it matters: A vast semi-arid reservoir that regulates the lower São Francisco for hydropower, irrigation, navigation and water supply.
Tucuruí Reservoir Brazil
Type: Hydroelectric reservoir · Tocantins River
Size / depth: Roughly 2,850 km² at normal operating level
Drainage / basin: Impounded by Tucuruí Dam
Why it matters: A huge tropical reservoir in the eastern Amazon, built for hydropower and navigation but associated with extensive ecological and social change.
Brokopondo Reservoir Suriname
Type: Hydroelectric reservoir · Suriname River
Size / depth: About 1,560 km²
Drainage / basin: Impounded by Afobaka Dam
Why it matters: Also called the W. J. van Blommestein Lake, it flooded a large tract of tropical forest during the 1960s to supply hydropower.
Test Yourself: South America Lakes Map Quiz
Q1. Which is South America’s largest unambiguously freshwater lake?
Maracaibo is a brackish tidal estuary and Patos is a coastal lagoon. Titicaca is the continent’s largest unambiguously freshwater natural lake.
Q2. Which named lake is more accurately a semi-enclosed bay or tidal estuary?
Lake Maracaibo connects to the Gulf of Venezuela and receives tidal salt water, so many geographers classify it as an estuary or semi-enclosed bay.
Q3. The Desaguadero River links Lake Titicaca with which vulnerable basin?
The Desaguadero carries part of Titicaca’s outflow south through the Altiplano toward the highly variable Lake Poopó basin.
Q4. General Carrera / Buenos Aires Lake is shared by:
Chile calls it General Carrera; Argentina calls it Buenos Aires. The shared glacial lake drains to the Pacific through the Baker River.
Q5. Which is the deepest lake in the Americas?
O’Higgins / San Martín Lake reaches about 836 m, making it the deepest lake in the Americas.
Q6. Itaipu Reservoir lies on which river?
The Paraná River forms the Brazil–Paraguay boundary at the Itaipu hydroelectric complex.
Q7. Which is South America’s largest coastal lagoon?
Lagoa dos Patos in southern Brazil covers about 10,000 km² and is the continent’s largest coastal lagoon.
Q8. Guri Reservoir was created on which river system?
Guri Dam impounds Venezuela’s Caroní River, a major tributary of the Orinoco.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the largest lake in South America?
The answer depends on classification. Lake Maracaibo covers roughly 13,200 square kilometres but is a brackish tidal estuary or semi-enclosed bay. Lagoa dos Patos is a coastal lagoon of about 10,000 square kilometres. Lake Titicaca, at about 8,300 square kilometres, is the largest unambiguously freshwater natural lake.
What is the highest major lake in South America?
Lake Titicaca lies about 3,810 metres above sea level on the Peru–Bolivia border. It is the highest of the world’s great navigable lakes.
What is the deepest lake in South America?
O’Higgins Lake in Chile, called San Martín Lake in Argentina, reaches approximately 836 metres and is the deepest lake in the Americas.
Is Lake Maracaibo a true lake?
Maracaibo is traditionally called a lake, but because it has a navigable tidal connection to the Gulf of Venezuela and contains brackish water, it is often classified as an estuary, lagoon or semi-enclosed bay.
Why did Lake Poopó dry up?
Poopó is extremely shallow and naturally variable. Severe drought, high evaporation, sedimentation and upstream water diversion contributed to its near-total drying in 2015. Wet periods can bring partial recovery, but the basin remains highly vulnerable.
Why are many Patagonian lakes turquoise?
Glaciers grind bedrock into extremely fine rock flour. Suspended particles scatter light, producing milky blue or turquoise water in glacier-fed lakes.
Why do some transboundary lakes have two names?
Neighbouring countries may preserve different official names. General Carrera is called Buenos Aires in Argentina, while O’Higgins is called San Martín across the border. Both names should be learned.
Authoritative Sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Lake Titicaca
- NASA Earth Observatory — Bolivia’s Lake Poopó Disappears
- NASA Earth from Space — Lake Maracaibo
- NASA Earthdata — The Maracaibo Beacon
- Argentina National Parks — Los Glaciares information guide
- Chile Travel — Lakes and Rivers
- Itaipu Binacional — Reservoir and hydropower data
- Freshwater Ecoregions of the World — Lagoa dos Patos
- Convention on Wetlands — List of Wetlands of International Importance
Data note: Areas and depths are rounded. Terminal lakes, floodplain lakes and reservoirs can change dramatically with rainfall, river discharge, drought, water diversion and operating level. Cross-border lakes may also have different accepted names and published measurements.
