Lake Tanganyika is one of the largest lakes in Central Africa (3° 20' to 8° 48' S and 029° 5' to 031° 15' E) and the sixth-largest lake of the earth. Its surface amounts to 32,893 km² and is thus about half as large as that of Lake Victoria. Due to its depth of up to 1,470 m, the volume of Lake Tanganyika (18.880 km³) is about 2.5 times larger than that of Lake Victoria. Lake Tanganyika is the largest fresh water reservoir in Africa. It has a north-south expansion of 673 km and a bank length of 1828 km.

Lake Tanganyika has borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Burundi. The largest part of the lake belongs to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (45%) and to Tanzania (41%).