Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a large, shallow, endorheic lake in the African Sahel. It has varied in size over the centuries.

Lake Chad
Photograph taken by Apollo 7, October 1968
Map of lake and surrounding region
Coordinates	13°0′N 14°0′E
Lake type	Endorheic
Primary inflows	Chari River
Primary outflows	Soro & Bodélé depressions
Basin countries	Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria
Surface area	1,350 km2 (520 sq mi) (2005) [1]
Average depth	1.5 m [2]
Max. depth	11 m [3]
Water volume	72 km3 (17 cu mi).[3]
Shore length1	650 km
Surface elevation	278 to 286 metres (912 to 938 ft)
References	[1]
Ramsar Wetland
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Lake Chad shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998, but "the 2007 (satellite) image shows significant improvement over previous years".^[4] Lake Chad is economically important. It provides water to over 68 million people in the four countries surrounding it: Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria. It is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is the largest lake in the Chad Basin, the largest drainage basin in Africa.

Fossils of an important extinct hominid were found in the dried lakebed of Lake Chad. This was Sahelanthropus tchadensis. From evidence at the fossil site in Chad, it is thought to have lived about seven million years ago.