Silbersee is a small
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 the
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n state of
Carinthia
Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...
, near the village of Sankt Ulrich, east of the
Villach
Villach (; sl, Beljak; it, Villaco; fur, Vilac) is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia. It is an important traffic junction for southern Austria and the whole Alpe-Adria region. , the po ...
city centre, close to the
River. Its surface area is over eight
hectare
The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...
s and its maximum depth is seven
metres.
The
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 ...
arose in the early 1970s during the construction of the nearby
Süd Autobahn
The Süd Autobahn (A2) ('South Motorway') is a motorway (''Autobahn'') in Austria. Completed in 1999, it runs from the outskirts of Vienna south via the cities of Graz and Klagenfurt to the border of Italy at Arnoldstein, where it joins the Autost ...
. Owned by the Villach city administration, it is part of a publicly accessible recreation area and a destination for bathers in summer and ice-skaters in winter. In 1991 it held the
Water Ski World Championships
The Water Ski World Championships is a bi-annual water ski competition that has taken place since 1949. Held near the end of the competition season, the World Championships are one of the sport's oldest major championships along with the Masters W ...
.
External links
Information from the Carinthian Institute of Limnology
Lakes of Carinthia
{{Carinthia-geo-stub