Lake Volta

Lake Volta is an artificial reservoir lying entirely within Ghana, formed by the Akosombo Dam, first proposed by the geologist Albert Ernest Kitson in 1915, and is the largest reservoir in the world by surface area, covering about 8,502 square kilometers. It stretches roughly 520 kilometers from its northern end near Yapei to the dam in the south, holds about 148 cubic kilometers of water, and reaches an average depth of 18.8 meters and a maximum depth of 75 meters, drawing on the White Volta and Black Volta rivers, which converge within the reservoir before flowing on as the Volta River. Filling the lake flooded roughly 15,000 homes across 740 villages and required relocating about 78,000 people in 1964.