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The record
60.02 m196.9 ft
Deep Dive Dubai
United Arab Emirates
The record
The deepest swimming pool in the world is Deep Dive Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates — 60.02 m (196.9 ft), maximum water depth.
Source: Guinness World Records. Verified .
Blue Abyss has been billed as the world’s second-deepest pool for years, and you still cannot book a dive in it — at 50 m it exists on paper rather than in the ground. Shanghai’s 46 m tank is real concrete, but it sits on the city’s 2026 major-projects list, unfinished.
Both are why this countdown runs on two rules. The first is what gets measured: maximum water depth in a purpose-built dive pool, as published by the facility or its record authority, which rules out flooded quarries and natural sinkholes however deep they go.
The second is that the pool has to be finished and bookable today — the rule that keeps those two off the page and puts a 42 m newcomer in Zhejiang on it instead. What survives runs from 60.02 m in Dubai down to 26 m an hour outside Seoul: ten pools, seven countries, and not one of them in the Americas, Africa or the southern hemisphere.
Fun Facts About the World’s Deepest Swimming Pools
The Statue of Liberty would vanish without touching the bottom. The statue stands 46 m from heel to torch; Deep Dive Dubai goes 60.02 m, leaving 14 m of water above the flame.
South Korea has three of the world’s ten deepest pools — more than any other country — and all three sit within about an hour of Seoul.
One pool held the world record for a full decade.Nemo 33 opened in Brussels in 2004 and nothing anywhere went deeper until 2014.
The newest entry was capped on purpose.X-Water stopped at 42 m because 40 m is the limit for recreational diving, and its builders wanted just enough extra water to turn around in.
You can dive in thermal spa water at 34°C.Y-40 fills its shaft from the hot springs under Montegrotto Terme, so no wetsuit is needed at any depth.
At 60.02 m, Deep Dive Dubai is the deepest swimming pool on Earth by a margin nothing else approaches — it is 14 m clear of the pool ranked second, a gap wider than most dive pools are deep. Guinness World Records certified the depth on 27 June 2021, and the shaft holds 14 million litres of fresh water, roughly what six Olympic pools carry between them.
The design is the reason it draws non-divers. The floor is dressed as a sunken city: furnished rooms, a snooker table, a foosball table, a car and motorbikes, all arranged so a descent reads as a walk through abandoned streets. It sits in Nad Al Sheba, a few minutes from central Dubai, and takes walk-ins when the schedule allows, though sessions are usually booked ahead.
At 46 m, DiveHub46 is the deepest pool in China and the second deepest anywhere, though only just — it clears the Polish pool behind it by 55 cm, a margin you would struggle to notice underwater. It stands at Songshan Lake in Dongguan, in Guangdong province, about an hour and a half from the Hong Kong and Shenzhen border.
The shaft is stepped rather than sheer, opening at 1.3 m and dropping through 2.5 m, 5 m and 10 m platforms before the final plunge to 46 m, which lets one facility serve a first snorkel and a technical training dive in the same session. The water is held near 30°C year-round across roughly 400 m² of surface, and bookings run through WeChat.
At 45.45 m, Deepspot is the deepest pool in Europe and the deepest anywhere outside Asia. It opened at Mszczonów, about 45 minutes south-west of Warsaw, on 21 November 2020, and for roughly seven months it was the deepest pool in the world — until Dubai took the record the following June.
It holds 8,000 m³ of water kept between 32°C and 34°C, and the descent passes five levels of artificial caves modelled on Mayan temples, complete with stalactites and carved reliefs. A glass tunnel runs through the pool so spectators can watch without getting wet, and the complex adds hotel rooms with windows opening directly onto the water.
At 42.15 m, Y-40 The Deep Joy is the deepest pool in Italy and holds fourth place by the finest margin on this list — 15 cm over the Chinese pool immediately behind it. It opened on 5 June 2014 inside the Hotel Terme Millepini at Montegrotto Terme, near Padua, and held the world record for the next six years.
What sets it apart is the water itself. The shaft is filled from the thermal springs the town was built on, and the temperature holds between 32°C and 34°C all the way down, so divers work without wetsuits at any depth. Architect Emanuele Boaretto built underwater caves into the walls and slung a transparent tunnel across the pool at mid-depth for spectators.
At 42 m, the X-Water Diving Hotel is the newest entry on this countdown and the second-deepest pool in China. It opened on 9 September 2025 on the bank of the Xin’an River in Jiande, in Zhejiang province, and it is the country’s first hotel built around a diving pool rather than one that happens to have one.
The depth is a deliberate number. Forty metres is the accepted ceiling for recreational diving, and the operators added two more so divers have room to turn at the bottom rather than stopping dead on the floor. Six stepped training levels run from 1.4 m down to the full 42 m across roughly 500 m² of water, a 14 m tunnel crosses the pool underwater, and the whole complex was converted from a calcium carbonate plant.
At 36 m, Deep Station is the deepest pool in South Korea and the deepest built anywhere on the Korean peninsula. It opened in June 2022 at Pogok-eup in Yongin, about an hour south of Seoul, and it was the first pool in the country built specifically for deep diving rather than adapted from a training tank.
It arrived as the anchor of a genuine Korean boom in deep pools — three of the world’s ten deepest are now within reach of one city, which no other capital can claim. The water is unusually clear even by dive-pool standards, and the operators built photo zones into the shaft, so a good share of the traffic is underwater filming rather than certification work.
At 35 m, Paradive 35 is South Korea’s second-deepest pool and the country’s newest, opening in October 2023 on Geobuk Island in Siheung, on the coast west of Seoul. It takes seventh place by 50 cm over the Belgian pool behind it, another of the sub-metre gaps that make the middle of this list so tight.
Five depth zones step down through 1.3 m, 5 m, 10 m and 20 m before the shaft opens to its full 35 m, and the walls are dressed as an Egyptian temple with photo stops at each level. It is the diving centrepiece of a larger leisure complex that also holds an indoor surfing pool, an infinity pool and a trick-art museum.
At 34.5 m, Nemo 33 is the pool that started all of this. It opened in Uccle, in southern Brussels, on 1 May 2004, and for a full decade nothing deeper existed anywhere — every pool above it on this list was built after Belgian diving instructor John Beernaerts proved the idea worked.
It is filled with non-chlorinated fresh water held around 33°C, drawn from a spring and cleaned without the chemistry that stings eyes in a municipal pool. Underwater caves open off the shaft at 10 m, and portholes set into the walls let people in the restaurant above watch divers pass. Note that the operator runs more than one site, and it is the Rue de Stalle address in Uccle that holds the 34.5 m shaft.
99. A30 Deep Water Pool
Kaltino, Vsevolozhsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia
At 30 m, the A30 Deep Water Pool is the only deep-water dive pool in Russia and the deepest anywhere in northern Europe. It sits at Kaltino, in the Vsevolozhsky district of Leningrad Oblast, about half an hour east of St Petersburg, and it reopened on 3 September 2026 after a run of maintenance work.
The shaft holds 2.5 million litres and steps down through platforms at 6.5 m, 11 m and 16 m from a 1.3 m shallow end, so a beginner and a technical diver can share a session. The builders decorated it with columns, tunnels and a giant chessboard laid out on the bottom, and the centre runs from 07:00 to 23:00 on advance booking.
At 26 m, K-26 completes the countdown, and for four years it was the deepest pool in Asia — a title it held from 2018 until Deep Station opened 10 m below it in 2022. Despite the name it usually travels under, it is not in Seoul: it stands at Cheongpyeong in Gapyeong, about an hour north-east of the city.
It holds 2.6 million litres kept at 29°C year-round, stepping through 1.3 m, 2.5 m, 5 m and 10 m marks before opening to the full 26 m. Divers without deep certification are held to the 10 m level, and the centre runs courses on site to work down from there. Entry covers three hours and includes a tank and a full set of gear.
FAQ: The World’s Deepest Swimming Pools
What is the deepest swimming pool in the world?
Deep Dive Dubai, in the Nad Al Sheba district of Dubai. Guinness World Records certified it at 60.02 m on 27 June 2021 and it has held the title since. It is 14 m deeper than the pool ranked second, the widest margin anywhere on this list.
Why isn’t Blue Abyss on this list?
Because it has not been built. The 50 m Blue Abyss project in the United Kingdom is frequently ranked second-deepest in the world, but it remains a proposal rather than a pool you can dive. This countdown only ranks facilities that are finished and open to book, which is also why Shanghai’s 46 m pool — still under construction and listed on the city’s 2026 major-projects register — does not appear.
What is the deepest swimming pool in Europe?
Deepspot, at Mszczonów near Warsaw, which reaches 45.45 m. It was the deepest pool in the world for about seven months after opening in November 2020, until Deep Dive Dubai took the record in June 2021. Y-40 in Italy is second in Europe at 42.15 m.
Which country has the most of the world’s deepest pools?
South Korea, with three of the ten: Deep Station, Paradive 35 and K-26, all within about an hour of Seoul. China has two, and the United Arab Emirates, Poland, Italy, Belgium and Russia have one each. No pool in the Americas, Africa or the southern hemisphere is deep enough to make the list.
Do you need a diving qualification to use them?
Not to get in the water, but you do to go deep. Most of these pools admit beginners and snorkellers to shallow platforms — K-26 caps uncertified divers at 10 m, for example — and run certification courses on site to work down. Reaching the deepest point at any of them requires a recognised deep or technical diving certification, and the shallowest entry here is still well past the depth of a standard open-water ticket.
How is a pool’s depth actually measured?
By maximum water depth: the vertical distance from the surface to the deepest point of the floor, as published by the facility or its record authority. That is not the same as the depth of the excavation, which is usually several metres greater once the structure beneath the pool is counted. Rankings on this page use the first figure throughout.
