Lake · Portugal
Lagoa das Sete Cidades
Lagoa das Sete Cidades is a lake inside the crater of an old volcano on São Miguel, an island of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Its name means “Lake of the Seven Cities”.
Picture credit: Hansueli Krapf (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Carlos Pacheco (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lagoa das Sete Cidades?
Countries on its shores: Portugal.
Middle of the lake: 37.86° N, 25.79° W
The story behind it
Long ago, a volcano about 1 200 metres high stood where the lake is today. Today only a huge bowl called a caldera is left, and the lake lies inside it. The lake has two parts that are joined by a narrow, shallow channel with a low bridge over it: the Lagoa Azul (Blue Lake) and the smaller Lagoa Verde (Green Lake). Each part reflects the sunlight in a different colour, so one often looks blue and the other green. An old legend says the lakes are the tears of a princess with green eyes and a shepherd with blue eyes who were not allowed to marry. The village of Sete Cidades lies on the western shore. People have put fish such as carp, pike, perch and trout into the lake. It is the largest lake of the Azores and one of the islands' most important stores of fresh water.
Find it on the globe
Lagoa das Sete Cidades 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.
Questions children ask
How big is Lagoa das Sete Cidades?
The lake covers about 4.35 km²; sources give between 4.3 and 4.45 km². That is small, but it is still the largest lake of the Azores.
Why is one part blue and the other green?
The two parts are called the Blue Lake and the Green Lake, because each part reflects the sunlight in a different colour. A legend says they are the tears of a green-eyed princess and a blue-eyed shepherd.
How did the lake form?
The lake lies in the caldera of an old volcano, a giant bowl that is left of a volcano about 1 200 metres high. The water surface is 259 metres above the sea.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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