Arena Reservoir

Where is Arena Reservoir?

Countries on its shores: Trinidad and Tobago.

Largest body of water of: Trinidad and Tobago.

Middle of the lake: 10.53° N, 61.23° W

The story behind it

Trinidad and Tobago has no natural lake of this size, so its largest lake is this reservoir. The Caroni–Arena Dam was opened in the late 1970s or early 1980s. It lies in the Arena Forest Reserve, a tropical evergreen forest in the eastern Caroni Plains. When it is full, the reservoir holds about 46.6 million cubic metres of water, more than any other reservoir in the country. Maps show that it covers about 3.4 square kilometres. The water authority, called WASA, cleans the water and sends it to homes in central Trinidad, and the dam is the largest water source in the country. Water from the Caroni River, which is 40 kilometres long, also reaches people through this dam. Trinidad has one very strange “lake” too: Pitch Lake in La Brea is filled with thick black asphalt, not water, and covers only about 0.4 square kilometres.

Find it on the globe

Arena Reservoir is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.