Lake Baikal is a big, beautiful lake in Siberia, Russia. It’s special because it has very clean water and is the deepest lake in the world. Let’s learn more about this amazing lake. Lake Baikal is huge, covering an area of 31,722 square kilometers. It’s really long too, stretching 636 kilometers. The deepest part of the lake goes down to 1,637 meters, which is like stacking more than five Empire State Buildings on top of each other.
In the 1990s, scientists from Russia and America did research on Lake Baikal by drilling into it. They found out a lot of important things, especially about how the climate is changing.
The lake is surrounded by mountains and hills. Up north, there are the Baikal Mountains. And guess what? There are even islands in the lake—27 of them, big and small. One really cool thing about Lake Baikal is that it holds about 22-23% of all the fresh water in the world!
People say Lake Baikal has the clearest water ever. You can see down into the water up to 30 to 40 meters in winter, even without special tools! The water has lots of oxygen, especially deep down.
In the winter, the top of the lake freezes over. There are so many different plants and animals living in and around Lake Baikal—over 1,000 different kinds! And guess what? Most of them are only found here, nowhere else in the world!
There are some really special plants around Lake Baikal that don’t grow anywhere else. And you know what else is cool? There are seals that live in the lake too! You might also see animals like bears, wolves, and a special kind of hare around here.
Lots of different birds call Lake Baikal home. There are also 65 different kinds of fish in the lake, and people catch some of them to sell in the market. Under the water, there are all kinds of little creatures like snails and bugs. They live way down deep, even up to 1,500 meters below the surface!
Lake Baikal is important to the Russian government, so they made it a special place for the economy. They even call it the “Pearl of Siberia” because it’s so pretty. People love to visit Lake Baikal because it’s so amazing and has so much to see and learn about. And the Russian government is always doing research to learn more about this incredible lake.
