Lake Tisza ( hu, Tisza-tó), also known as Kisköre Reservoir (Hungarian: ''Kiskörei-víztározó''), is the largest

artificial lake A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. It is located at the southeastern edge of

Heves county Heves county ( hu, Heves megye, ) lies in northern Hungary, between the right bank of the river Tisza and the Mátra and Bükk mountains. It shares borders with the Hungarian counties Pest, Nógrád, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Jász-Nagykun ...

, next to counties Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Hajdú-Bihar and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok. As part of the ongoing

Tisza River The Tisza, Tysa or Tisa, is one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. Once, it was called "the most Hungarian river" because it flowed entirely within the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it crosses several national borders. The Tisza be ...

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

control project, the Tisza Dam was built in 1973. Its filling was finished in the 1990s, resulting a 127 km²

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

. The lake is 27 km in length, with an average depth of 1.3 m and a maximum depth of 17 m; it contains 43 km² of small

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s. Following the reservoir's completion, Hungarians began to flock to the site for holidays, since it compared favorably with the crowded and expensive

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and ...

, the traditional holiday site. As a result,

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

infrastructure has been developed on the reservoir—renamed Lake Tisza—and the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

has designated it an official tourism destination. The lake (or reservoir) has a perfect

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

with a diversity of birds,

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

s, and

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

s. The ''Hortobágy National Park'' has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. Lake Tisza Ecocentre in Poroszló was erected to collect and display the

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

and

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

of the Tisza River valley and Lake Tisza. It was opened to the public on 27 April 2012.

References

External links

Webpage of the lake

Webpage of Lake Tisza Ecocentre

Lake Tisza at funiq.hu
Reservoirs in Hungary Lakes of Hungary Geography of Heves County {{Hungary-geo-stub