Nakai Reservoir

Where is Nakai Reservoir?

Countries on its shores: Laos.

Largest body of water of: Laos.

Middle of the lake: 17.98° N, 104.97° E

The story behind it

Workers began building the Nam Theun 2 Dam in 2005, and it was opened in 2010. The dam is only 39 metres tall, but it holds back the Nam Theun, a river that flows to the Mekong, and the water spread out over the wide Nakai Plateau. When it is full, the reservoir covers about 450 km². From the lake, the water drops 350 metres down to a power station and then flows on into another river, the Xe Bang Fai. Most of the electricity goes to Thailand, and a smaller part is used in Laos. Before the lake filled, 17 villages with about 6 300 people had to move to new homes. Around the lake lie three large protected nature areas, and there is a special plan to look after the Asian elephants that live there. Laos has no natural lake of this size; the largest body of water in Laos is this reservoir. It is even bigger than the Nam Ngum Reservoir, which covers about 370 km².

Find it on the globe

Nakai 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.