The lake is divided into three basins: North, Central, and South, with depths about 900 m (3,000 ft), 1,600 m (5,200 ft), and 1,400 m (4,600 ft), respectively. The fault zone is also seismically active hot springs occur in the area and notable earthquakes happen every few years. In geological terms, the rift is young and active – it widens about 2 cm (0.8 in) per year. The bottom of the lake is 1,186.5 m (3,893 ft) below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km (4.3 mi) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–11 km (5.0–6.8 mi) below the surface, the deepest continental rift on Earth. At 636 km (395 mi) long and 79 km (49 mi) wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in Asia, at 31,722 km 2 (12,248 sq mi), and is the deepest lake in the world at 1,642 m (5,387 ft). Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the Earth's crust is slowly pulling apart. Ī digital elevation model of Lake Baikal region UNESCO declared Baikal a World Heritage Site in 1996. The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia or as the Transbaikal, and the loosely defined region around the lake itself is sometimes known as Baikalia. It is also home to Buryat tribes, who raise goats, camels, cattle, sheep, and horses on the eastern side of the lake, where the mean temperature varies from a winter minimum of −19 ☌ (−2 ☏) to a summer maximum of 14 ☌ (57 ☏). Lake Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many of them endemic to the region. At 31,722 km 2 (12,248 sq mi)-slightly larger than Belgium-Lake Baikal is the world's seventh-largest lake by surface area.

It is the world's deepest lake, with a maximum depth of 1,642 m (5,387 ft), and the world's oldest lake, at 25–30 million years. With 23,615.39 km 3 (5,670 cu mi) of water, Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 22–23% of the world's fresh surface water, more than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. It is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. Lake Baikal ( / b aɪ ˈ k ɑː l, - ˈ k æ l/, Russian: Oзеро Байкал, romanized: Ozero Baykal ) is a rift lake in Russia. 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Pure source 2 ice water filter