Lake Nicaragua
Lake Nicaragua () or
Cocibolca is a freshwater lake in
Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of
8624 km², it is the second largest
lake in
Latin America, the 20th largest lake in the world and only slightly smaller than
Lake Titicaca. With an elevation of 105 feet (32 m) above sea level, the lake reaches a depth of 84 ft (26m).
Nicaraguans call it Lago Cocibolca or Mar Dulce (Sweet Sea). In fact, it has everything it needs to be a sea except that the water is not salty. Like any other sea it has sizeable waves, driven by the easterly winds blowing west to the
Pacific Ocean. It also has
archipelagos of islands, such as
Ometepe and the
Solentiname Islands, along with
freshwater sharks (now mostly found in the Río San Juan). It has also built a reputation of having periodic, powerful, and impassable storms. The winds on the western side are often very intense.
The lake is connected with the
Caribbean Sea by the navigable
San Juan River, historically making the lakeside city of
Granada, Nicaragua an Atlantic port. The lake even had a history of Caribbean
pirates. However, despite draining into the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific Ocean is near enough to be easily seen from the mountains on the lake's Island of
Ometepe. Before construction of the Panama Canal, a stagecoach line connected the lake with the Pacific across the low hills of the narrow Isthmus of
Rivas. Plans were made to take advantage of this route to build an interoceanic canal, the
Nicaragua Canal, but the
Panama Canal was built instead. In order to quell competition with the Panama Canal, the
U.S. secured all rights to a canal along this route in the
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty of
1916. However, the idea of another canal in Nicaragua still periodically resurfaces.
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