FAST FACTS
Name: Sørvágsvatn or Leitisvatn
Place: Vágar, Faroe Islands
Coordinates: 62.0496, -7.2362
Why it’s amazing: The lake looks like it is hanging over the sea.
Sørvágsvatn, also called Leitisvatn, is a 3.4 square kilometer lake in the Faroe Islands that appears to float above the sea.
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Locals disagree about the name of the lake, hence why there are two. The inhabitants of Sørvágur, a village west of the lake on the island of Vágar, prefer the name Sørvágsvatn, which means “lake by Sørvágur”. People who live in Miðvágur and Sandavágur east of the lake on Vágar call it Leitisvatn, or “the lake by Leiti”, referring to a territory in the east of the Faroe Islands.
The village of Miðvágur is closer to the lake than Sørvágur is, but the latter is believed to have been settled earlier during the ninth centurycomplicates the picture. Another argument for calling the lake Sørvágsvatn is that the Faroe Islands’ first settlers divided Vágar into three equal regions — and the lake is located in the same region as Sørvágur.
However, to avoid this debate, the locals mostly refer to the lake as Vatnið, which simply means “the lake”.
The lake is surrounded by cliffs, giving the impression that it is higher above the waves than it actually is. This is especially the case on either side of the lake’s primary outlet, a 100-foot-high (30 m) waterfall called Bøsdalafossur, meaning “waterfall by Bøsdal”, referring to the area near the settlement of Bøur.
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