Lake Eğirdir
| Lake Eğirdir | |
|---|---|
 The lake with the town (on the left) and the two islands with the causeway | |
| Coordinates | 38°03′24″N 30°51′58″E / 38.05667°N 30.86611°ECoordinates: 38°03′24″N 30°51′58″E / 38.05667°N 30.86611°E |
| Basin countries | Turkey |
| Surface area | 482 km2 (186 sq mi) |
| Surface elevation | 917 m (3,009 ft) |
Eğirdir (Turkish: Eğirdir Gölü, formerly Eğridir) is the name of a lake and of the town situated on the shore of that lake (Eğirdir) in Turkey. The lake lies in the Turkish Lakes Region and is 186 kilometers (116 mi) north of Antalya. With an area of 482 square kilometres (186 sq mi) it is the fourth largest (second largest freshwater) lake in Turkey.
Name
The town and the lake were formerly called Eğridir, a Turkish pronunciation of the town's old Greek name Akrotiri.Eğridir means "it is crooked" in Turkish, so to remove the negative connotations, in the mid-1980s the “i” and the “r” were transposed in a new official name, thus creating Eğirdir, a name that evokes spinning and flowers,[1] although many people in Turkey still call both the town and the lake by its former name.
Islands
Lake Eğirdir has two islands, connected to the mainland by a long causeway into the town of Eğirdir:
- Can Ada (meaning "Life Island") the smaller of the two islands.
- Yeşil Ada ("Green Island," formerly known as Nis) - until 1923, was home to a Greek community living in stone and timber houses.
See also
References
- ↑ Turkey. Lonely Planet. 1999. p. 315.
