Stop 1 · Canada
Toronto
It sits on Lake Ontario, smallest of the five Great Lakes by area but still holding more water than the entire Baltic Sea's freshwater inflow in a year.
Cities on the world's great freshwater lakes
Not one of these stops is on the sea. Each sits on the shore of — or at the gateway to — one of the largest bodies of fresh water on the planet.
The five stops
Stop 2 · Switzerland
Geneva
Lake Geneva holds 89 km³ of water. The Rhône enters muddy from Alpine glaciers at one end and leaves startlingly blue at the other.
Stop 3 · Tanzania
Mwanza
Lake Victoria is the world's largest tropical lake and the second largest freshwater lake by area — but nowhere deeper than 84 m.
Stop 4 · Burundi
Bujumbura
Lake Tanganyika is the world's second-deepest and second-oldest lake, holding roughly 16% of all the liquid fresh water on earth.
Stop 5 · Russia
Irkutsk
Lake Baikal is 1,642 m deep and holds a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water — more than all five North American Great Lakes combined.
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