Waters and hydrographic features

Kon-Tiki expedition

The Kon-Tiki expedition (1947): Thor Heyerdahl and five crew crossed about 8,000 km from Callao, Peru to Raroia atoll in 101 days on a balsa-log raft, testing South American raft voyaging to Polynesia; the migration theory itself was rejected.

Konkouré

Konkouré: river and mangrove estuary in Guinea whose delta is Ramsar Site no. 575 (designated 18 November 1992, 90,000 ha), also IBA GN013 and a Key Biodiversity Area, with tide-dominated hydrodynamics and a Garafiri dam 130 km upstream.

Kootenay (lake)

Kootenay Lake (Kootenai, Ktunaxa origin), a 104-km-long natural fjord-like lake in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, within Ktunaxa and Sinixt territory; regulated since 1938 by the IJC's Corra Linn Dam order, area 389 km², max depth 154 m.

Kootenay River

Kootenay River (Kootenai in the US), a 448-mile Columbia tributary looping from BC through Montana and Idaho back to Kootenay Lake and the Columbia near Castlegar; Libby and Duncan dams regulate it under the Columbia River Treaty.

Korea Bay

Korea Bay (서해 북부) is the northeastern embayment of the Yellow Sea, below China's Liaodong Peninsula between Liaoning and North Korea. The Yalu River enters it at Dandong; drift ice up to 35 cm forms there in winter.

Korea Strait (대한해협)

The Korea Strait (대한해협), also called the Tsushima Strait, links the East China Sea to the Sea of Japan between Korea and Japan's Kyushu and Honshu.

Kotto

The Kotto is a river of the Central African Republic, about 730 km long, draining the country's eastern half before joining the Mbomou to form the Ubangi.

Kotuy

Kotuy (Коту́й), also spelled Kotui, a 1,409 km river in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, rising on the Putorana Plateau and forming, with the Kheta, the Khatanga River; basin 176,000 km², discharge 1,600 m³/s.

Kotzebue Sound

Kotzebue Sound: large shallow embayment (>90,000 km2, depth 10–18 m) of the southeast Chukchi Sea, northwest Alaska, named by Otto von Kotzebue in 1816; receives the Noatak, Kobuk, and Selawik Rivers; hub of Iñupiaq subsistence and the Sisualik trade fair.

Koyukuk

Koyukuk River, major tributary of the Yukon River in interior Alaska; rises in the Brooks Range, drains about 31,400-35,135 mi², discharges 770 m³/s, largest contributor to Yukon summer chum salmon, site of the 1898-1918 Koyukuk gold rush.

Krasnoye

Krasnoye (Красное, "red") is a common Russian toponym. Notable bearers: Lake Krasnoye in Chukotka (458 km², Anadyr River, major obsidian source) and Lake Krasnoye on the Karelian Isthmus (9.13 km²), plus Krasnoye Selo and a Crimean salt lake.

Kratie - Stung Treng (Mekong)

Kratie - Stung Treng (Mekong), FEOW freshwater ecoregion 728, covers the Mekong from Prek Chhlong to Khone Falls in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, with nearly 30 endemic fishes, deep pools, Irrawaddy dolphins, and a threatened Stung Treng flooded forest.

Krishna River (कृष्णा नदी)

Krishna River (कृष्णा नदी), third-longest river of India, rises in the Western Ghats near Mahabaleshwar and flows about 1,400 km to the Bay of Bengal; a 258,948 km² basin shared by Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh under tribunal awards.

Kroner Lake

Kroner Lake is a small round lake west of Whalers Bay on Deception Island, Antarctica, named by whalers and turned into a lagoon by the 1969 eruption.

Kronotsky Gulf

Kronotsky Gulf (Кроноцкий залив), a Pacific gulf on eastern Kamchatka between the Shipunsky and Kronotsky peninsulas, 68.5 km long, up to 1,500 m deep, with a major Holocene tsunami record and pollock spawning canyons.

Kulundinskoe

Kulundinskoe (Кулундинское озеро, Lake Kulunda) is a large drainless hyperhaline lake on the Kulunda Plain, Altai Krai, Russia; area about 720–728 km², salinity 40–131 g/l, mirabilite reserves, and a commercial Artemia brine shrimp cyst fishery.

Kumano Basin

Kumano Basin (熊野盆地), a forearc basin off Japan's Kii Peninsula on the Nankai Trough, about 100 by 70 km, filled with up to 2000 m of turbidites over an accretionary prism; NanTroSEIZE drilling and DONET monitoring site with mud volcanoes and gas hydrates.

Kumpupintil

Kumpupintil Lake, formerly Lake Disappointment, is a large endorheic salt lake in Western Australia's Little Sandy Desert on Martu land, officially renamed in November 2020 and home of the Ngayurnangalku beings.

Kunene River

Kunene River, also spelled Cunene, is a perennial river in southwestern Africa that originates in central Angola and flows to the Atlantic, supplying water and hydropower to both countries.

Kura

Kura (Georgian Mtkvari, ancient Cyrus), largest river of the Transcaucasus, rises near Kars, Turkey, flows through Georgia and Azerbaijan to the Caspian; 1,515 km, Mingachevir dam, shared basin governance.

Kura - South Caspian Drainages

The Kura - South Caspian Drainages is a freshwater ecoregion (ID 434) covering all rivers draining to the southern Caspian Sea, spanning Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey, and Russia.

Kuril Basin

Kuril Basin, deep back-arc basin in the southern Sea of Okhotsk behind the Kuril island arc; fan-shaped, about 3,000 m deep, formed by Oligocene-Miocene back-arc spreading, and the mixing zone producing Okhotsk Sea Intermediate Water for North Pacific ventilation.

Kuril-Kamchatka Trench

Kuril-Kamchatka Trench: a ~2,100 km northwest Pacific subduction trench where the Pacific plate dives beneath the Okhotsk microplate; re-surveyed at 9,604 m, source of the 1952 M9.0 and 2025 M8.8 earthquakes, and host of chemosynthetic hadal communities.

Kuskokwim River

The Kuskokwim River, 724 miles long, is Alaska's second-largest river, draining about 130,000 km2 into the Bering Sea. It hosts chinook, chum, sockeye, pink, and coho runs, one of Alaska's largest subsistence fisheries, and co-management by the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission amid salmon declines.

Kuwae

Kuwae (Tombuk eruption) is a submarine caldera volcano between Epi and Tongoa, Vanuatu, formed by a mid-15th century VEI 6-7 eruption, variously dated about 1420-1453, and debated as the source of a major 1450s ice-core sulfate event.

Kwango (landform)

Kwango River, also called Cuango or Lucuali, a transboundary Angolan-DR Congo river and largest left-bank tributary of the Kasai in the Congo basin, about 1,100 km long, diamond-bearing, with 18 geology-controlled knickpoints.

Kwania

Lake Kwania (Kwania, Lake) is a shallow 508 km² freshwater lake in northern Uganda, part of the Kyoga Lakes complex, draining via a 20-km channel to the Victoria Nile; a key inland fishery facing flooding, fish deaths, and illegal-fishing enforcement.