The seven Musala lakes are situated in the homonymous cirque and belong to the basin of the river Musalenska Bistritsa, a tributary of the Iskar.

[1] The lakes are formed in three interconnected cascading cirques, giving rise to the glacial valley of the Musalenska Bistritsa, which starts at Rila's highest summit Musala and reaches the winter resort of Borovets further downstream in a northern direction, in the northern foothills of Rila.

Geologically, the Musale Lakes fall entirely within the Musala body of the Rila-Western Rhodope batholith, built up of medium- to coarse-grained granite dating from the Bartonian age 40 to 35 million years old.

Situated in a small cirque at 365 m to the northeast of Mount Musala, the lake lies at an altitude of 2,709 m, which makes it the highest one in the Rila and on the Balkan peninsula.

The sixth lake is located at 1,770 m north of Musala at an altitude of 2,391 m. It has an area of 0.26 ha and is the smallest of the group.