Lake Lungern (german: Lungerersee, also spelled ''Lungernsee'' or ''Lungerensee'') is a natural
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 ...
in
Obwalden
Obwalden, also Obwald (german: Kanton Obwalden, rm, Chantun Sursilvania; french: Canton d'Obwald; it, Canton Obvaldo), is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of seven municipalities and the seat of the govern ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
which is named after the town
Lungern
Lungern is a municipality in the canton of Obwalden in Switzerland. It encompasses Lake Lungern and, besides the village of Lungern, the settlements of Bürglen, Kaiserstuhl and Obsee.
Geography
The village of Lungern lies above sea level in ...
on its shore. The lake is drained by the
Sarner Aa river
The Sarner Aa is a long river in the Swiss canton of Obwalden. It drains the area to the eastern side of the Brünig Pass, flowing through the Lake Lungern, Lake Sarnen and the Wichelsee, before entering Lake Lucerne near Alpnach. It goes by sev ...
, which flows through the
Sarnersee
Lake Sarnen (German: ''Sarnersee'') is a lake in the Swiss canton of Obwalden. The lake is on the Sarner Aa, which flows out of the Lake Lungern, through the Lake Sarnen, and into Lake Lucerne. The municipalities of Sarnen and Sachseln are located ...
and into
Lake Lucerne
__NOTOC__
Lake Lucerne (german: Vierwaldstättersee, literally "Lake of the four forested settlements" (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), french: lac des Quatre-Cantons, it, lago dei Quattro Cantoni) is a lake in central ...
.
The lake was originally much larger, and covered a large part of the valley it is situated in. Starting in 1836, its level was lowered by through an artificial drainage tunnel with a length of .
[Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon. 14th ed., Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna 1894; Vol. 11, p. 385.] It is used as a
reservoir
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 ...
.
See also
*
List of lakes of Switzerland
This article contains a sortable table listing all major lakes of Switzerland. The table includes all still water bodies, natural or artificial, that have a surface area of at least , regardless of water volume, maximum depth or other metric. Th ...
References
External links
*
*
Lakes of Obwalden
Reservoirs in Switzerland
LLungern
Lakes of the Swiss Alps
{{Obwalden-lake-stub