Lake Kariba

Lake Kariba is the world's largest man-made lake and reservoir by volume. It lies 1300 kilometres upstream from the Indian Ocean, along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Lake Kariba was filled between 1958 and 1963 following the completion of the Kariba Dam at its northeastern end, flooding the Kariba Gorge on the Zambezi River.The Zimbabwean town of Kariba was built for construction workers on the lake's dam, while some other settlements such as Binga village and Mlibizi in Zimbabwe and Siavonga and Sinazongwe in Zambia have grown up to house people displaced by the rising waters.Physical characteristicsLake Kariba is over 223km long and up to 40km in width. It covers an area of 5,580km2mi) and its storage capacity is 185km3. The mean depth of the lake is 29m; the maximum depth is 97m. It is the world's largest man-made reservoir, four times as large as the Three Gorges Dam. The enormous mass of water (approximately 180,000,000,000,000 kilograms, or 180 petagrams ) is believed to have caused induced seismicity in the seismically active region, including over 20 earthquakes of greater than 5 magnitude on the Richter scale.