Lake Lungern (, also spelled ''Lungernsee'' or ''Lungerensee'') is a natural
lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
in
Obwalden
Canton of Obwalden or Obwald ( ; ; ; ) is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of seven municipalities and the seat of the government and parliament is in Sarnen. It is traditio ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
which is named after the town
Lungern
Lungern is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Obwalden in Switzerland. It encompasses Lake Lungern and, besides the village of Lungern, the settlements of Bürglen, Kaiserstuhl and Obsee.
Geograp ...
on its shore. The lake is drained by the
Sarner Aa river
The Sarner Aa is a long river in the Swiss canton of Obwalden. It drains the area to the eastern side of the Brünig Pass, flowing through the Lake Lungern, Lake Sarnen and the Wichelsee, before entering Lake Lucerne near Alpnach. It goes by sev ...
, which flows through the
Sarnersee
Lake Sarnen (German: ''Sarnersee'') is a lake in the Swiss canton of Obwalden. The lake is on the Sarner Aa, which flows out of the Lake Lungern, through the Lake Sarnen, and into Lake Lucerne. The municipalities of Sarnen and Sachseln are locate ...
and into
Lake Lucerne
Lake Lucerne (, literally 'Lake of the four Waldstätte, forested settlements' (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), , ) is a lake in central Switzerland and the fourth largest in the country.
Geography
The lake has a compli ...
.
The lake was originally much larger, and covered a large part of the valley it is situated in. Starting in 1836, its level was lowered by through an artificial drainage tunnel with a length of .
[Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon. 14th ed., Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna 1894; Vol. 11, p. 385.] It is used as a
reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
.
See also
*
List of lakes of Switzerland
This article contains a sortable table listing all major lakes of Switzerland. The table includes all still water bodies located either entirely or partly in Switzerland, both natural and artificial, that have a surface area of at least , regar ...
References
External links
*
*
Lakes of Obwalden
Reservoirs in Switzerland
LLungern
Lakes of the Swiss Alps
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