Lake Titicaca

Where is Lake Titicaca?

Countries on its shores: Peru, Bolivia.

Largest lake of: Peru, Bolivia.

Middle of the lake: 15.83° S, 69.33° W

The story behind it

Lake Titicaca is so big that it looks like a sea sitting on top of the mountains. It is really two basins joined by the Strait of Tiquina, which is only about 800 metres wide at its narrowest point. The Uros people live on floating islands that they build themselves from layers of totora, a thick reed that grows in the shallow water. In the religion of the Incas, the sun god was born on the Isla del Sol, the Island of the Sun. More than 530 kinds of water animals and plants live in the lake, among them the huge Titicaca water frog and the Titicaca grebe, a water bird that cannot fly. Iron steamships such as the Yavari were already built for the lake in 1862. Since 2000 the water level has been sinking. Lake Titicaca is the largest lake in both Peru and Bolivia.

Find it on the globe

Lake Titicaca 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.