Lake Ypoá

Where is Lake Ypoá?

Countries on its shores: Paraguay.

Largest lake of: Paraguay.

Middle of the lake: 25.91° S, 57.43° W

The story behind it

Lake Ypoá is not one simple lake but a whole family of waters. Three large open stretches – Ypoá, Cabral and Verá – are joined by wide marshes and swamps. Verá alone covers about 50 km² and Cabral about 12 km², so the open water together measures more than 60 km². Huge floating islands of plants drift on the lake. Slowly they grow together and even join the dry land, so the shape of the lake keeps changing. The water is shallow: on average only about 1.5 metres, and hardly anywhere deeper than about 2.4 metres. The lake lies in Ypoá National Park, where capybaras, monkeys, toucans and crocodiles live, and rare birds such as the strange-tailed tyrant live in the grassy marshes. Counted together with the lagoons it merges into, Lake Ypoá is the largest lake in Paraguay.

Find it on the globe

Lake Ypoá 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.