The list of lakes, lochs, loughs and llyns of the United Kingdom is a link page for some large lakes of the United Kingdom (

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

), including lochs fully enclosed by land. Lakes in Scotland are called ''lochs'', and in Northern Ireland ''

lough ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spel ...

s'' (pronounced the same way, i.e. (/lɒç/)). In Wales a lake is called a ''llyn''. The words "loch" and "lough", in addition to referring to bodies of freshwater ("lakes"), are also applied to bodies of brackish water or seawater, which in other countries or contexts may be called

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...

firth Firth is a word in the English and Scots languages used to denote various coastal waters in the United Kingdom, predominantly within Scotland. In the Northern Isles, it more usually refers to a smaller inlet. It is linguistically cognate to ''fj ...

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

, bay etc. In particular, the term "sea-loch" is used in Scotland in this way, as the English language equivalent of 'fjord'. (There are many examples, including

Loch Carron Loch Carron (Scottish Gaelic: "Loch Carrann") is a sea loch on the west coast of Ross and Cromarty in the Scottish Highlands, which separates the Lochalsh peninsula from the Applecross peninsula, and from the Stomeferry headland east of Loc ...

Loch Torridon Loch Torridon ( gd, Loch Thoirbheartan) is a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland in the Northwest Highlands. The loch was created by glacial processes and is in total around 15 miles (25 km) long. It has two sections: Upper Loch Torridon ...

etc.) Some of the largest lakes in England and Wales are man-made

reservoirs A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

or lakes whose size has been increased by

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

ming.

Largest water bodies in the United Kingdom

Lough Neagh with administrative boundaries

This table includes the ten largest fresh water bodies by area. Lough Neagh is the largest water body in the UK by this measure, although

Loch Ness Loch Ness (; gd, Loch Nis ) is a large freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands extending for approximately southwest of Inverness. It takes its name from the River Ness, which flows from the northern end. Loch Ness is best known for claim ...

is the largest by volume and contains nearly double the amount of water in all the lakes of England and Wales combined."Botanical survey of Scottish freshwater lochs"
SNH Information and Advisory Note Number 4. Retrieved 1 January 2010.

Loch Morar Loch Morar (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Mòrair) is a freshwater loch in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland. It is the fifth-largest loch by surface area in Scotland, at , and the deepest freshwater body in the British Isles with a maximum depth of . The l ...

is the deepest of the UK's lakes and

Loch Awe Loch Awe (Scottish Gaelic: ''Loch Obha'') is a large body of freshwater in Argyll and Bute, Scottish Highlands. It has also given its name to a village on its banks, variously known as Loch Awe or Lochawe. There are islands within the loch such ...

the longest. Murray and Pullar (1910) note that the mean depth of Loch Ness is 57.4% of the maximum depth – higher than in any other large deep loch in Scotland.Murray and Pullar (1910
"Lochs of the Ness Basin"
Pages 381-85, Volume II, Part II. National Library of Scotland. Retrieved 2 January 2010. The deepest lake in England is

Wast Water Wast Water or Wastwater () is a lake located in Wasdale, a valley in the western part of the Lake District National Park, England. The lake is almost long and more than wide. It is a glacial lake, formed in a glacially 'over-deepened' valle ...

which descends to 76 metres (249 ft).

Largest natural lakes in England

Largest natural lakes in Wales

These are largely 'natural' but some have minor modifications to regulate their outflow.

Largest reservoirs in the United Kingdom

Notes

References