بحيرة بايكال Lake Baikal

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Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest lake; it is the second most voluminous lake, after the Caspian Sea. As the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, with an average depth of 744.4 m (2,442 ft), Lake Baikal contains roughly 20% of the world's surface fresh water.

Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia (between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, near the city of Irkutsk), the body of water is also known as the "Pearl of Siberia".

At 1,642 metres (5,387 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest, and among the clearest of all lakes in the world. At more than 25 million years old, Baikal is also the world's oldest lake, Like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km2/12,248 sq mi, less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is also home to Buryat tribes who reside on the eastern side of Lake Baikal, rearing goats, camels, cattle and sheep, where the regional temperature varies from a minimum of −19 °C (−2 °F) in winter to maximum of 14 °C (57 °F) in summer .

Lake Baikal was known as the "North Sea" in historical Chinese texts. It was situated in the then Xiongnu territory. Very little was known to Europeans about the lake until the Russian expansion into the area in the 17th century. The first Russian explorer to reach Lake Baikal was Kurbat Ivanov in 1643.

The lake is completely surrounded by mountains. The Baikal Mountains on the north shore and the taiga are technically protected as a national park. It contains 27 islands; the largest, Olkhon, is 72 km (45 mi) long and is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world. The lake is fed by as many as three hundred and thirty inflowing rivers.[4] The main ones draining directly into Baikal are the Selenga River, the Barguzin River, the Upper Angara River, the Turka River, the Sarma River and the Snezhnaya River. It is drained through a single outlet, the Angara River.