ZAP’S FACTS!
RIVERS & LAKES

The Dead Sea is so salty you can float and read a book.

It's nearly 10 times saltier than the ocean - too salty for almost anything to live in.

2 min read
The Dead Sea is so salty you can float and read a book.
THE FULL STORY

The Dead Sea isn’t really a sea - it’s a salty lake on the border of Israel and Jordan, sitting in the lowest spot on any continent at 430 metres below sea level. So much salt is dissolved in it that swimmers bob on the surface like a cork.

Why is it so salty? Water flows in from the Jordan River but has nowhere to escape - it can only evaporate. Each drop that leaves takes pure water with it and leaves all the dissolved salt behind. After thousands of years, the salt content has climbed to about 34 percent.

Almost nothing can live in that brine. The Romans named it the “Dead Sea” because no fish swim there and no plants grow on its shores. But that very salt and the mineral-rich mud are why people travel from all over the world to bathe in it.

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