With 70% of the Earth’s surface covered in water, open water swimmers have a vast choice of where they swim. The world’s waterways range from warm to cold, salt to fresh, calm to rough, man-made to natural. We analyzed 1,423 open water swims in 79 countries throughout Asia, Europe, Oceania, the Americas and Africa and found the following data about where open water swims are held:

Ocean or sea: 58.6% of total
Lake: 23.2%
River: 7.8%
Bay: 7.6%
Dam or reservoir: 1.7%
Canal: 0.9%
Fjord: 0.1%

Photo of Acapulco Bay which sits on the Pacific Ocean on the western Mexican coast.

Copyright © 2009 by Open Water Source