Which of the following has the highest salinity?
- (a)Great salt lake
- (b)Dead sea
- (c)Red sea
- (d)Lake Van
Answer
Why
Correct — D. The question is keyed from the salinity table Indian school geography prints, and in that table Lake Van in Turkey stands at 330 parts per thousand — the highest entry on it.
The same table gives the Dead Sea 240 and the Great Salt Lake 220, both far above the open-ocean average of about 35. Fame is not the test here, the printed figure is, and on that figure option (d) wins.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Great salt lake — 220 parts per thousand in the same table — extraordinary for a lake, but below the 330 printed for Lake Van, and the table is what this question is keyed from.
- (b)Dead sea — The famous answer, and the trap. The table puts the Dead Sea at 240 parts per thousand — dense enough to float a swimmer, still short of the figure printed for Lake Van.
- (c)Red sea — A sea, not a landlocked brine. Heavy evaporation and no perennial river inflow push the Red Sea to roughly 40 parts per thousand — above ocean average, nowhere near any of the lakes.
Concept
Salinity is the mass of dissolved salts in a thousand parts of water, written in parts per thousand. Open ocean sits near 35, and it rises wherever evaporation is heavy and outflow is poor.
That is why the extremes are all enclosed basins with no outlet to the sea. Water leaves only as vapour, salt stays behind, and concentration climbs until the water is a brine. The Dead Sea, the Great Salt Lake and Lake Van are all of that type, and SSC's question is really asking which one your textbook ranks first.
Be aware of the gap between the table and the field. Surveys of Lake Van measure a salinity of about 23 g/kg at a pH near 10 — it is a strongly alkaline soda lake, not a Dead-Sea-style brine.
On those measured figures the Dead Sea (about 340 g/L) and the Great Salt Lake (50 to 270 g/L in its main basin) are both far saltier than Lake Van.
SSC keys from the textbook figure, so that is the answer to give in the exam. Knowing why the two disagree is what stops you second-guessing yourself in the hall.
Key facts
- The salinity figures Indian school geography prints for these water bodies: Lake Van 330 parts per thousand, the Dead Sea 240, the Great Salt Lake 220.
- Average ocean salinity is about 35 parts per thousand.
- The Red Sea is one of the most saline open seas at roughly 40 parts per thousand, because evaporation is high and no major river drains into it.
- Lake Van, the largest lake in Turkey and the largest soda lake in the world, is measured at a salinity near 23 g/kg and a pH of about 10.
Study next
Common traps
- Answering Dead Sea from general knowledge, when the key is following the textbook ranking.
- Treating a very saline sea, the Red Sea at about 40 parts per thousand, as comparable to a lake in the hundreds.
Salinity comes up as a ranking or a single number lifted straight from the table, not as a calculation.
Physical geography also appears in this shift at General Awareness Q.13, which asks which relief feature keeps the cold Central Asian winds out, and Q.14, which asks for the transboundary river between India and Pakistan.
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