Þórisvatn (; sometimes anglicized to Thorisvatn) is the largest lake of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

, situated at the south end of the Sprengisandur plateau within the highlands of Iceland. It is 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 ...

with a surface area of about and is fed by the river Þjórsá, which comes down from the

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

Hofsjökull __NOTOC__ Hofsjökull (Icelandic language, Icelandic: "temple glacier", ) is the third largest ice cap in Iceland after Vatnajökull and Langjökull and covers the largest active central volcano in the country, which has the same name. It is si ...

. On its southern end, Þórisvatn is used to generate electricity at a power station. It is like other Icelandic lakes, which are mostly glacial lakes or

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

lakes. The lake grew from about 70 km² to 86 km² with the construction of the power station and was previously only the second largest lake in the country.

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Highlands of Iceland Lakes of Iceland Rift lakes of Iceland {{iceland-geo-stub

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