Earth's superlatives

World Records of Nature

Ask which river is the longest and you start an argument. Many of Earth's records depend on how you measure: where a river begins, where a mountain's base is, whether a salty lake counts as a lake. This table gives the commonly accepted winner and flags the debates.

Figures are rounded and come from survey agencies, the US government's ocean service and well-referenced encyclopedia entries.

Glowing pahoehoe lava flowing into Pacific Ocean waves on Hawaii

Lava meets the Pacific in Hawaii: Brocken Inaglory, CC BY-SA 3.0

The records

Figures rounded. Checked 1 October 2026.
Record	Holder	Figure	The fine print
Highest mountain above sea level	Mount Everest, Nepal and China	8,848.86 m	Joint Nepal and China survey announced in December 2020.
Tallest mountain from base to peak	Mauna Kea, Hawaii	4,207 m above sea level, about 9,330 m from its sea-floor base	The base is loosely defined, so published figures vary widely.
Deepest point in the ocean	Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench	About 10,935 m	Different surveys disagree by a few metres.
Lowest land on Earth	Shore of the Dead Sea	About 440 m below sea level (2025)	The level keeps falling, so this figure gets lower every year.
Longest river	Nile (traditional answer)	About 6,650 km	Some scientists argue the Amazon is longer; it depends on which source and which mouth you measure from.
Biggest river by flow	Amazon	About 220,000 cubic metres per second at the mouth	No other river comes close.
Largest lake	Caspian Sea	About 371,000 square km	It is salty, so some lists treat it separately. Five countries share its shore.
Largest freshwater lake by area	Lake Superior	About 82,100 square km	Lakes Michigan and Huron are bigger if you count them as one lake.
Deepest and oldest lake	Lake Baikal, Russia	1,642 m deep, 25 to 30 million years old	Holds more fresh water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined.
Largest ocean	Pacific	About 165 million square km	Covers about a third of Earth's surface, more than all the land put together.
Tallest waterfall	Angel Falls, Venezuela	979 m in total, with an 807 m single drop	Some still debate whether South Africa's Tugela Falls is taller.
Largest desert	Antarctica	About 14.2 million square km	A desert is defined by low precipitation, not heat.
Largest hot desert	Sahara	About 9.2 million square km	Third-largest desert overall, after Antarctica and the Arctic.
Driest non-polar desert	Atacama, Chile	Stretches about 1,600 km along the coast	Also the largest fog desert on Earth.
Highest recorded air temperature	Death Valley, USA	56.7 C on 10 July 1913	The official World Meteorological Organization record.
Lowest recorded air temperature	Vostok Station, Antarctica	-89.2 C on 21 July 1983	Measured at ground level by station instruments.
Largest country	Russia	About 17.1 million square km	About 1.7 times the size of second-placed Canada.
Smallest country	Vatican City	About half a square km	Also the smallest population of any country, under 1,000 people.
Highest lowest point	Lesotho	1,400 m	The only country lying entirely above 1,000 m.

Why records are messier than they look

Rivers are the worst offenders. To measure one you have to pick its farthest source, trace every bend and decide where it actually meets the sea. The Amazon spills into a vast estuary, and choosing a different channel can add hundreds of kilometres. That is why the Nile versus Amazon question has never been fully settled.

Mountains have a similar problem. Everest wins on height above sea level, but Mauna Kea starts deep under the Pacific, so measured from its own base it is taller. Both answers are correct; they just answer different questions.

Several of these records have their own pages on Geographical Effect, including Mount Everest, Lake Baikal, the Dead Sea, the Amazon River and the Mariana Trench.

Explore the record holders

Highest

Mount Everest

How the world's highest peak was measured and who climbs it.

Deepest

Pacific Ocean and the Mariana Trench

The largest ocean and the deepest place on Earth.

Oldest lake

Lake Baikal

A lake so old and deep it has its own species.

Lowest land

The Dead Sea

Why the lowest place on land keeps getting lower.

Biggest flow

The Amazon River

The river that carries more water than any other.

Longest river

Egypt and the Nile Valley

How one river shaped where almost all Egyptians live.

World Records of Nature

The records

Why records are messier than they look