Lake Neuchâtel ( ; ; ) is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

primarily in

Romandy Romandy ( or ; Arpitan: ''Romandia'')Before World War I, the term French Switzerland () waalso used ( or , , ) is the French-speaking historical and cultural region of Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 million people, or 22.8% of the Swiss pop ...

, the French-speaking part of

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. The lake lies mainly in the canton of Neuchâtel, but is also shared by the cantons of

Vaud Vaud ( ; , ), more formally Canton of Vaud, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of Subdivisions of the canton of Vaud, ten districts; its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat ...

Fribourg or is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Canton of Fribourg, Fribourg and district of Sarine (district), La Sarine. Located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss Plateau, it is a major economic, adminis ...

, and

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

. It comprises one of the lakes in the Three Lakes Region (French: ''Pays des Trois-Lacs'', German: ''Drei-Seen-Land''), along with lakes

Biel Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...

/Bienne and Morat/Murten. With a surface of , Lake Neuchâtel is the largest lake located entirely in Switzerland and the 59th largest lake in Europe. It is long and at its widest. Its surface is

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

, and the maximum depth is . The total water volume is . The lake's drainage area is approximately and its culminating point is Le Chasseron at . In comparison to the Lake Geneva region, the Lake Neuchatel shoreline has experienced significant economic development with the completion of the regional motorway network. It is also known to have housed a Celtic agglomeration on pile-dwellings called La Tène and which gives its name to the second Iron Age. The lake is fed by the rivers L'Orbe (called La Thielle or La Thièle locally, downstream of the city of Orbe), ''L'Arnon'', ''L'Areuse'', ''Le Seyon'', and ''La Menthue'', as well as by the ''Canal de la Broye''. The Thielle Canal (, ) drains the lake into Lake Biel and is part of regulation system for the lakes and the rivers of the Seeland region. Lake Neuchâtel was the home of the now

extinct 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 ...

species of deepwater trout '' Salvelinus neocomensis''.

Geography

Lake Neuchatel is situated at the foot of the Jura mountain range, on the Swiss Plateau. Mainly in the French-speaking Swiss Romande, it borders the territory of four cantons:

Neuchâtel Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...

(),

() and

(). The lake's main tributaries are the Thiele and the Broye canal which connect it to Lake Morat. It flows into Lake Biel via the Thielle canal (German: ''Zihlkanal''). Since the Jura water correction in the 19th and 20th centuries, it has served, together with Lake Morat, as a compensation basin for the waters of the

Aare The Aare () or Aar () is the main tributary of the High Rhine (its discharge even exceeds that of the latter at their confluence) and the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. Its total length from its source to i ...

flowing into Lake Biel. Indeed, if the level of the latter rises too much, the flow may stop or even go in the opposite direction. Lake Neuchâtel is long and has a maximum width of . Its maximum depth is and its capacity is estimated at . It is the largest lake located entirely on Swiss territory, considering that

Lake Geneva Lake Geneva is a deep lake on the north side of the Alps, shared between Switzerland and France. It is one of the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lakes in Western Europe and the largest on the course of the Rhône. Sixty percent () ...

and

Lake Constance Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These ...

are shared with neighboring countries. In the summer of 2021, Lake Neuchatel reached historically high water levels due to widespread flooding over mainland Europe.

History and prehistory

The lake was frequented by prehistoric man as evidenced by the remains (site of the Auvernier lake resort and archeological museum, the Laténium) where bones of

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

and

Eurasian beaver The Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber'') or European beaver is a species of beaver widespread across Eurasia, with a rapidly increasing population of at least 1.5 million in 2020. The Eurasian beaver was hunted to near-extinction for both its fur ...

were also found (two species then almost ubiquitous in Europe). Several

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically f ...

ic monuments line the lake such as the alignment of Clendy and the

menhir A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Br ...

s of Gorgier, Grandson, Saint-Aubin-Sauges, and Vauroux, as well as an imposing erratic block, the . When the first Swiss towns appear, Mont Vully, which was a large fortified area of around 50 hectares built around 120 BCE, controlled the lakes of Morat and Neuchâtel while the La Tène area remained nearly unoccupied. What is now Yverdon-les-Bains was located on a barrier island on the other side of the lake, a place of smaller settlement (3 to 4 hectares) occupied from the 4th century BCE, and later fortified in 80 BCE by means of a long and solid rampart with frontal posts (like that of Vully), before this oppidum (''Eburodunum'') becomes a ''

vicus In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus ...

'' in the first centuries CE. The first written mention of the lake dates from the year 998 CE, where a ''laci everdunensis'' (or lake of Yverdon, from its Latin name ''Eburodunum'') is mentioned, near which the priory of Bevaix was founded. The name dominates throughout the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, co-utilized with the current term ''Lake Neuchâtel'', however, is frequent from the

15th century The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian calendar dates from 1 January 1401 (represented by the Roman numerals MCDI) to 31 December 1500 (MD). In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Re ...

onwards. The latter became dominant during the 19th century, in particular with the lowering of the level of the lake and the development of the Vaudois railway, which reduced the importance of the Port of Yverdon. The Swiss Air Force used the lake for bombing practice until 2021, leaving an estimated 4,500 tons of munitions in its waters. Some of these munitions are located as close as six or seven meters below the surface. Lake Neuchâtel, and in particular the town of Neuchâtel became a popular tourist destination during the

Belle Époque The Belle Époque () or La Belle Époque () was a period of French and European history that began after the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era of the Fr ...

period due to its climate and panoramic views of the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

List of settlements on the lake

Northwestern shore

From Yverdon to La Tène (Southwest to Northeast): * Yverdon-les-Bains ( VD) * Grandson (VD) * Bonvillars (VD) * Onnens (VD) * Corcelles-près-Concise (VD) * Concise (VD) * Vaumarcus ( NE) * Sauges (Saint-Aubin-Sauges) (NE) * Saint-Aubin (Saint-Aubin-Sauges) (NE) * Gorgier, Chez-Le-Bart (Gorgier) (NE) * Bevaix (NE) * Cortaillod (NE) * Areuse (Boudry) (NE) * Colombier (Milvignes) (NE) * Auvernier (Milvignes) (NE) * Serrières (Neuchâtel) *

* Hauterive (NE) * St-Blaise (NE) * Marin-Epagnier (La Tène) (NE)

Southeastern shore

From Yverdon to Gampelen: * Cheseaux (Cheseaux-Noréaz) (VD) * Yvonand (VD) * Cheyres (Cheyres-Châbles) ( FR) * Châbles (Cheyres-Châbles) (FR) * Font (Estavayer) (FR) * Estavayer-le-Lac (Estavayer) (FR) * Forel (Estavayer) (FR) * Chevroux (VD) * Pré de Riva (Gletterens) (FR) * Portalban (Delley-Portalban) (FR) * Chabrey (Vully-les-Lacs) (VD) * Champmartin (Cudrefin) (VD) * Cudrefin (VD) * La Sauge (Cudrefin) (VD) * Lindehof, Witzwil (Ins) ( BE) * Tannenhof (Gampelen) (BE)

Notes

External links

*
Waterlevels at the Harbour of Neuchâtel
from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment {{DEFAULTSORT:Lake Neuchatel L Lake Neuchatel Neuchatel Neuchatel Neuchatel Neuchatel Neuchatel Bern–Fribourg border Fribourg–Vaud border Bern–Vaud border Bern–Neuchâtel border Ramsar sites in Switzerland