Swiss Watching trivia, No 25: Lakes

August 25, 2010, No comments

Lakes and mountains belong together, and as Switzerland has quite a few peaks, it follows that it has lots of troughs too. Over 1500, though it seems that not even the Swiss have counted them all. The two largest stand like bookends at the edges of the country, but neither is entirely Swiss – Lake Geneva is shared with France, Lake Constance with Austria and Germany. That leaves Lake Neuchâtel as the biggest lake entirely within Switzerland; at 218.3km² it’s almost twice the size of the much more famous Lake Lucerne (pictured). As for Lakes Thun and Brienz, the two beside Interlaken (hence the town’s name), together they are barely one third of Neuchâtel’s area. In total Switzerland has 57 lakes bigger than 1km² and then countless ones smaller than that (big ponds really). Those lakes, along with the rivers and glaciers, mean that Switzerland accounts for 6% of all the freshwater in Europe. No wonder the tap water tastes so good.