QUICK FACTS
Name: Sørvágsvatn or Leitisvatn
Location: Vágar, Faroe Islands
Coordinates: 62.0496, -7.2362
Why it’s incredible: The lake looks like it’s hanging over the ocean.
Sørvágsvatn, also called Leitisvatn, is a 1.3-square-mile (3.4 square kilometers) lake in the Faroe Islands that appears to float above the sea.
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Locals disagree about the name of the lake, hence why there are two. The inhabitants of Sørvágur, a village to the west of the lake on the island of Vágar, prefer the name Sørvágsvatn, which means “the lake by Sørvágur.” People living in Miðvágur and Sandavágur to the east of the lake on Vágar call it Leitisvatn, or “the lake by Leiti,” in reference to a territory in the east of the Faroe Islands.
The village of Miðvágur is closer to the lake than Sørvágur is, but the latter is thought to have been settled earlier during the ninth century, complicating the picture. Another argument in favor of calling the lake Sørvágsvatn is that the Faroe Islands’ first settlers divided Vágar into three equal regions — and the lake is situated in the same region as Sørvágur.
But to avoid this debate, locals mostly refer to the lake as Vatnið, meaning simply “the lake.”
The lake is surrounded by cliffs, which creates the impression that it is higher above the waves than it actually is. This is especially the case on either side of the lake’s primary outlet, a 100-feet-high (30 m) waterfall called Bøsdalafossur, meaning “the waterfall at Bøsdal,” referring to the area near the settlement of Bøur.
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