Lake Onega has a surface area of without islands and a volume of ; its length is about and width about . It is the second largest lake in Europe, and the 18th largest lake by area in the world. Its southern banks are mostly low and continuous, whereas northern banks are rocky and rugged. They contain numerous elongated bays shaping the lake into a giant crayfish. In the northern part lies a large Zaonezhye Peninsula (); south of it, is the Big Klimenetsky () island. To the west of them lies the deep (deeper than ) Greater Onega () area containing the Kondopozhskaya (, depth up to ), Ilem-Gorskaya (), Lizhemskoy () and Unitskoy () bays. To the southwest of Greater Onega lies Petrozavodskoye Onego () containing the large Petrozavodsk and small Yalguba and Pinguba bays. To the east of Zaonezhye there is a bay, northern part of which is called Povenetsky Bay and the southern part is Zaonezhsky Bay. There, deep sections alternate with banks and islands which split the bay into several parts. The southernmost part of them, Lesser Onega, is deep. All the shores there are rocky.