Lake Atitlán (, ) is a lake in the

Guatemalan Highlands The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala which lies between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north. Geographic description The Highlands lie between 6360 ft and 13780 ft and are ...

of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The lake is located in the

Sololá Department __NOTOC__ Sololá is a city in Guatemala. It is the capital of the department of Sololá and the administrative seat of Sololá municipality. It is located close to Lake Atitlan. The name is a Hispanicized form of its pre-Columbian name, one sp ...

of southwestern

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

. It is known as the deepest lake in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

Name

Atitlán means "between the waters". In the

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

language, "atl" is the word for water, and "titlan" means between. The "tl" at the end of the word "atl" is dropped (because it is a grammatical suffix) and the words are combined to form "Atitlán".

Geography

The lake has a maximum depth of about and an average depth of . Its surface area is . It is approximately with around of water. Atitlán is an

endorheic An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

lake, fed by two nearby rivers and not draining into the ocean. It is shaped by deep surrounding escarpments and three volcanoes on its southern flank. The lake basin is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

formed by a supervolcanic eruption 79,500 years ago. The culture of the towns and villages surrounding Lake Atitlán is influenced by the

Maya people Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...

. The lake is about west-northwest of

Antigua Antigua ( ; ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the local population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua ...

. It should not be confused with the smaller Lake Amatitlán. Lake Atitlán is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and is one of Guatemala's most important national and international tourist attractions. German explorer and naturalist

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...

called it "the most beautiful lake in the world," and

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...

famously wrote of it in his 1934 travel book ''Beyond the Mexique Bay'': "

Lake Como Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...

, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing." The area around San Marcos has particularly tall cliffs abutting the lake and in recent years has become renowned for cliff diving.

Agriculture

The area supports extensive coffee and avocado orchards and a variety of farm crops, most notably corn and onions. Significant agricultural crops include: corn, onions, beans, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, chile verde, strawberries and pitahaya fruit. The lake itself is a significant food source for the largely indigenous population.

Geological history

The first volcanic activity in the region occurred about 11 million years ago, and since then the region has seen four separate episodes of volcanic growth and caldera collapse, the most recent of which began about 1.8 million years ago and culminated in the formation of the present caldera. The lake now fills a large part of the caldera, reaching depths of up to . The caldera-forming eruption is known as Los Chocoyos eruption and ejected up to of

tephra Tephra is fragmental material produced by a Volcano, volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, ...

. The enormous eruption dispersed ash over an area of some : it has been detected from

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, and can be used as a

stratigraphic Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

marker in both the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

and

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

ocean The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as ''oceans'' (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Indian, Southern Ocean ...

s (known as Y-8 ash in marine deposits). A ''chocoyo'' is a type of bird which is often found nesting in the relatively soft ash layer. Since the end of Los Chocoyos, continuing volcanic activity has built three volcanoes in the caldera. Volcán Atitlán lies on the southern rim of the caldera, while Volcán San Pedro and Volcán Tolimán lie within the caldera. San Pedro is the oldest of the three and seems to have stopped erupting about 40,000 years ago. Tolimán began growing after San Pedro stopped erupting and probably remains active, although it has not erupted in historic times. Atitlán has developed almost entirely in the last 10,000 years and remains active, its most recent eruption having occurred in 1853. On February 4, 1976, a very large earthquake (magnitude 7.5) struck Guatemala, killing more than 26,000 people. The earthquake fractured the lake bed and caused subsurface drainage from the lake, allowing the water level to drop within one month.

Ecological history

In 1955, the area around Lake Atitlán became a

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

. The lake was mostly unknown to the rest of the world, and Guatemala was seeking ways to increase tourism and boost the local economy. It was suggested by

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

that stocking the lake with a

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

prized by anglers would be a way to do just that. As a result, an exotic

non-native species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

, the

black bass Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''Psy ...

, was introduced into the lake in 1958. The bass quickly took to its new home and caused a radical change in the species composition of the lake. The predatory bass caused the elimination of more than two-thirds of the native fish species in the lake and contributed to the

extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

of the Atitlan grebe, a rare

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

that lived only in the vicinity of Lake Atitlán. A unique aspect of the climate is what is referred to as Xocomil (of the Kaqchickel language meaning "the wind that carried away sin"). This wind is common late morning and afternoon across the lake; it is said to be the encounter of warm winds from Pacific meeting colder winds from the North. The winds can result in violent water turbulence, enough to capsize boats. In August 2015 a thick bloom of algae known as Microcystis

cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria ( ) are a group of autotrophic gram-negative bacteria that can obtain biological energy via oxygenic photosynthesis. The name "cyanobacteria" () refers to their bluish green (cyan) color, which forms the basis of cyanobacteri ...

re-appeared in Lake Atitlan; the first major occurrence was in 2009. Bureaucratic red tape has been blamed for the lack of action to save the lake. If current activities continue unchecked, the toxification of the lake will make it unsuitable for human use.

Culture

The lake is surrounded by many villages in which Maya culture is still prevalent and traditional dress is worn. The Maya people of Atitlán are predominantly Tz'utujil and Kaqchikel. During the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...

of the Americas, the Kaqchikel initially allied themselves with the invaders to defeat their historic enemies, the Tz'utujil and K'iche' Maya, but were themselves conquered and subdued when they refused to pay

tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of lands which the state con ...

to the Spanish.

Santiago Atitlán Santiago Atitlán (, from Nahuatl ''atitlan'', "at the water", in Tz'utujil language, Tz'utujil ''Tz'ikin Jaay'', "birdhouse") is a Municipalities of Guatemala, municipality in the Sololá Department, Sololá department of Guatemala. Geography Th ...

is the largest of the lakeside communities, and it is noted for its worship of

Maximón Maximón (), is a Maya deity and folk saint, represented in various forms by the Maya peoples of several towns in the Guatemalan Highlands. Oral tradition of his creation and purpose in these communities is complex, diverse, and born of the anci ...

, an idol formed by the fusion of traditional Mayan deities, Catholic saints, and conquistador legends. The institutionalized

effigy An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...

of Maximón is under the control of a local religious brotherhood and resides in various houses of its membership during the course of a year, being most ceremonially moved in a grand procession during

Semana Santa Semana Santa is the Spanish for Holy Week, the final week of Lent leading to Easter. In Spanish speaking cultures as well as Holy Week in the Philippines, the Philippines this becomes an annual tribute of the Passion of Jesus Christ celebrated by ...

. Several towns in Guatemala have similar cults, most notably the cult of San Simón in Zunil. Hotel Atitlan2

While Maya culture is predominant in most lakeside communities, Panajachel has been overwhelmed over the years by Guatemalan and foreign tourists. It attracted many

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

in the 1960s, and although the civil war caused many foreigners to leave, the end of hostilities in 1996 saw visitor numbers boom again, and the town's economy is almost entirely reliant on tourism today. Several Mayan archeological sites have been found at the lake. Sambaj, located approximately 55 feet below the current lake level, appears to be from at least the pre-classic period.Henry Benítez and Roberto Samayoa, "Samabaj y la arqueología subacuática en el Lago de Atitlán," in XIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 1999 (Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, 2000), 2:849–54. There are remains of multiple groups of buildings, including one particular group of large buildings that are believed to have been the city center. A project titled "Underwater archeology in the Lake Atitlán. Sambaj 2003 Guatemala" was recently approved by the Government of Guatemala in cooperation with Fundación Albenga and the Lake Museum in Atitlán. Because of the concerns of a private organization as is the Lake Museum in Atitlán the need to start the exploration of the inland waters in Guatemala was analyzed. There is no road that circles the lake. Communities are reached by boat or roads from the mountains that may have brief extensions along the shore. Jaibalito can only be reached by boat. Santa Catarina Palopó and San Antonio Palopó are linked by road to Panajachel. Otherwise, the main towns are Santa Clara La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna, and San Pedro La Laguna in the west;

in the south; Cerro de Oro in the southeast; and San Lucas Tolimán in the east. Recent studies indicate that a ceremonial site named Samabaj was located on an island about long in Lake Atitlán. The site was revered for its striking connection to the Popol Wuj of the K'iche' Mayan peoples.

Guatemalan civil war

During the

Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various Left-wing politics, leftist rebel groups. The Guatemalan government forces committed Guatemalan genocide, genocide against the Maya population o ...

(1960 - 1996), the lake was the scene of many terrible human rights abuses, as the government pursued a

scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...

policy. Indigenous people were assumed to be universally supportive of the

guerrillas Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

who were fighting against the government, and were targeted for brutal reprisals. Some believe that hundreds of Maya from Santiago Atitlán have disappeared during the conflict. Two events of this era made international news. One was the

assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

of Stanley Rother, a

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

from Oklahoma, in the church at Santiago Atitlán in 1981. In 1990, a spontaneous protest march to the army base on the edge of town was met by gunfire, resulting in the death of 11 unarmed civilians. International pressure forced the Guatemalan government to close the base and declare Santiago Atitlán a "military-free zone". The memorial commemorating the massacre was damaged in the 2005 mudslide.

Hurricane

Torrential rains from

Hurricane Stan Hurricane Stan was the deadliest tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. A relatively weak system that affected areas of Central America and Mexico in early October 2005, Stan was the eighteenth named storm and eleventh hurric ...

caused extensive damage throughout Guatemala in early October 2005, particularly around Lake Atitlán. A massive

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

buried the lakeside village of Panabaj, causing the death of as many as 1,400 residents, leaving 5,000 homeless, and many bodies buried under tonnes of earth. Following this event, Diego Esquina Mendoza, the mayor of Santiago Atitlán, declared the community a mass gravesite: "Those buried by the mudslide may never be rescued. Here they will stay buried, under five meters of mud. Panabáj is now a cemetery." Four and a half years after Hurricane Stan, Tropical Storm Agatha dropped even more rainfall causing extensive damages to the region and the effects of Tropical Storm Agatha resulting in dozens of deaths between San Lucas Tolimán and San Antonio Palopó. Since then roads have been reopened and travel to the region has returned to normal.

Gallery

File:Volcano Atitlan, San Pedro, Toliman & Lago Atitlan 3D version 1.jpg, Volcano Atitlan, San Pedro, Toliman & Lago Atitlan isometric view File:Lake Atitlán.jpg, Another view from the Lake File:Atitlan2015a 01.jpg, Storm over San Pedro volcano, 2015 File:Sunrise on Lake Atitlan (6849876858).jpg, Sunrise at lake atitlán Guatemala File:Volcanoes of lake Atitlan.jpg, Volcanoes of Lake Atitlan File:Lago Atitlan, seen from San Marcos.jpg, Lake Atitlán, seen from San Marcos Guatemala File:Fisherman on Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.jpg, Fisherman in Lake Atitlán File:Atitlan Lake and Volcanoes (3746396035).jpg, Lake Atitlán and volcanoes File:Hotel de Atitlán.jpg, Hotel on the shores of Lake Atitlán Guatemala File:Panajachel lake atitlan 2009r.JPG, Panajachel File:Lake Atitlan & Volcanoes from the East (6849884554).jpg, Lake Atitlan & volcanoes from the East File:Clouds, Mountains, Lakes - Atitlan Guatemala 2003.jpg, Clouds, mountains, lakes File:Harmful Bloom in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.jpg, A harmful bloom of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) spread across the lake (false color image) File:Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlan (6996010093).jpg, Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlán File:Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlan-Panajachel (6849886486).jpg, Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlán-Panajachel File:Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlan-Panajachel (6996011707).jpg, Hike down from the east rim to Lake Atitlán-Panajachel File:Santiago atitlan.jpg, Santiago Atitlán map File:Lago de atitlan.jpg, Lake Atitlán Guatemala File:Atitlan - panoramio.jpg, Panorama of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala File:Volcan de San Pedro y lago de Atitlan.jpg, Volcanoes near Lake Atitlán File:Guatémala 78.jpg, Indigenous people near Lake Atitlán File:Sololá1.jpg, Sololá File:Guatemala Panjachel Sunset.JPG, Sunset in Panjachel File:Chichicastenango-004.jpg, Mayan girls in Chichicastenango, their clothing indicates they are from Santa Catarina Palopó File:Panajachel orilla 1.jpg, Panajachel shore File:La Casa del Mundo.jpg, View of a lancha and Volcán Atitlán from Hotel La Casa del Mundo

Notes

External links

AMSCLAE Authority Lake Atitlan

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atitlan Volcanic crater lakes Lakes of Guatemala Pleistocene calderas Lake Atitlan Lake Atitlan VEI-7 volcanoes Lake Atitlan Volcanoes of Guatemala Central American pine–oak forests