Gatun Lake (Sp. Lago Gatún) is a large artificial lake situated in the Republic of Panama; it forms a major part of the Panama Canal, carrying ships for 33 km (21 mi) of their transit across the Isthmus of Panama.
The lake was created between 1907 and 1913 by the building of the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River. At the time it was created, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake in the world, and the dam was the largest dam on earth.
Read more about Gatun Lake: Description, Role in The Canal, Gatun Lake Supplementary Benefits
Famous quotes containing the word lake:
“What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone! None of your half-mile swamps, none of your mile-wide woods merely, as on the skirts of our towns, without hotels, only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-board and station, over ground much of it impassable in summer!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)