Luoma Lake () is located in central

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...

province, China, northwest of

Suqian Suqian (, IPA: ) is a prefecture-level city in northern Jiangsu Province, China. It borders Xuzhou to the northwest, Lianyungang to the northeast, Huai'an to the south, and the province of Anhui to the west. History Suqian was said to be the si ...

. In an average year, the lake, connecting with the Grand Canal, takes up an area of 375 square kilometers. In Jiangsu, it is perceived as one of the four major freshwater lakes. Besides its historical values, it is currently known as a travel destination; it is listed as one of the main attractions for tourists visiting the city of Suqian.

Origin

Currently, most people in the city believe that Luoma Lake gets its name from its shape, which looks like the backbone of a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

. They insist that this lake is formed by nature. Indeed, Luoma Lake was initially formed as a tectonic lake and enlarged by the change of

river system In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of land, whether a particular region is dominated by h ...

. Due to the change in the course of the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

which temporarily merged with the

Si River The Si River is a river in Shandong Province, China. It also ran through the area of modern Jiangsu Province until floods in 1194. Course The Si rises in the southern foothills of the Mengshan Mountains (蒙山), then flows through Sishui County ...

and

Huai River The Huai River (), Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as the Hwai, is a major river in China. It is located about midway between the Yellow River and Yangtze, the two longest rivers and largest drainage basins ...

between the

Song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

dynasties, the Yellow River flooded this area for several times and enlarged the surface area of Luoma Lake. During the past 300 years, the Yellow River brought sediments into Luoma Lake and created depositions inside the lake. In the 1950s, dams were constructed around the lake and made the lake a larger semi-artificial reservoir.

History

The history of Luoma Lake can be traced back to the period of

Gaozong of Song Emperor Gaozong of Song (12 June 1107 – 9 November 1187), personal name Zhao Gou, courtesy name Deji, was the tenth emperor of the Song dynasty and the first of the Southern Song period, ruling between 1127 and 1162 and retaining power as ret ...

. According to his autobiography, he came to this place and named it as Luoma, which literally means horse backbone. Because "Luoma" shares the same pronunciation with the phrase "being removed from office due to corruption" in Mandarin Chinese, the county government of Xinyi renamed it "Longma Lake", which has been boycotted by local people.

Ecosystem

Due to its temperature and humidity appropriate for living, several species inhabit in Luoma Lake. Those species include

phragmites ''Phragmites'' () is a genus of four species of large perennial reed grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world. Taxonomy The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, maintained by Kew Garden in London ...

nelumbo nucifera ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as sacred lotus, Laxmi lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more often re ...

silver carp The silver carp (''Hypophthalmichthys molitrix'') is a species of freshwater cyprinid fish, a variety of Asian carp native to China and eastern Siberia, from the Amur River drainage in the north to the Xi Jiang River drainage in the south. Alt ...

Chinese white shrimp The Chinese white shrimp, oriental shrimp, or fleshy prawn (''Fenneropenaeus chinensis'') is a species of shrimp. It is cultivated at an industrial level off mainland China. Production was devastated by a series of epidemics in the 1990s and ea ...

, and

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

Cyanobacteria Community

A study was conducted in Luoma Lake in 2015 to investigate the factors that influence the cyanobacteria abundance. It suggests that this abundance has a positive relationship with the concentration of ammonium and a negative one with oxygen concentration.

References

Lakes of Jiangsu {{Jiangsu-geo-stub