Lake · Jamaica
Wallywash Great Pond
Wallywash Great Pond is a small freshwater lake in the parish of St Elizabeth in south-western Jamaica. It is the largest lake in Jamaica that holds water all year round.
Where is Wallywash Great Pond?
Countries on its shores: Jamaica.
Largest lake of: Jamaica.
Middle of the lake: 17.95° N, 77.80° W
The story behind it
Wallywash Great Pond lies near the village of Pondside, about 6 miles south-east of the town of Black River. It covers only about 0.76 km² and is about 1 km long, yet it is the largest lake in Jamaica that never dries up. The lake is shallow: at its deepest point the water is about 5 metres deep. It sits in a long dip in the limestone rock that formed along a crack in the Earth's crust. Although the sea is less than 3 km away, the water is completely fresh. Long ago, Spanish settlers called it «Laguna Sucio». Scientists love this lake: they pulled a column of mud more than 9 metres long from its bottom. Its layers tell the story of Jamaica's climate over the last 125 000 years. Today many birds live around the lake, people go fishing, and visitors can ride pedal boats.
Find it on the globe
Wallywash Great Pond 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 Wallywash Great Pond?
It covers about 0.76 km² and is about 1 km long. That is small, but it is still the largest lake in Jamaica that holds water all year round.
Is the water salty, because the sea is so close?
The lake lies less than 3 km from the coast and only 7 metres above the sea. Still, scientists found that its water is completely fresh, not salty.
Why do scientists study the mud of this lake?
Over a very long time, layer upon layer of mud has settled on the bottom. A core more than 9 metres long shows how Jamaica's climate changed over 125 000 years.
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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