Best of · lakes
The 16 Most Beautiful Lakes in the World
16 places · every one real, mapped, and worth the trip
A great lake is a mirror the land holds up to the sky, and the finest of them seem almost impossibly coloured — glacial turquoise, mineral emerald, or the deep sapphire of water so old and so deep it feels bottomless. This is our editors' pick of the most beautiful in the atlas, loosely ordered by the strength of the spectacle rather than any single measurement.
Every one is a real, mapped place with an honest guide to reaching it and the season it looks its best — because the colour of a lake can change completely between the melt and the freeze.
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Banff & Moraine Lake The postcard
Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Rock-flour glacial melt turns Moraine Lake a electric turquoise beneath the Valley of the Ten Peaks — the most photographed water in the Canadian Rockies, at its bluest through July and August.
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Plitvice Lakes Terraced & turquoise
Lika, central Croatia
Sixteen lakes cascade one into the next over travertine dams in a Croatian forest, linked by boardwalks that let you walk right across the water — colour shifting from teal to jade with the light.
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Jiuzhaigou Multicoloured pools
Sichuan Province, China
A Tibetan valley in Sichuan strung with lakes so clear and mineral-rich they glow turquoise, cobalt, and gold — with fallen trees visible metres down through the water.
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Lake Baikal Oldest & deepest
Siberia, Russia
The oldest and deepest lake on Earth holds a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water; in late winter it freezes into vast sheets of clear, cracked turquoise ice.
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Issyk-Kul The warm mountain sea
Issyk-Kul Region, Tian Shan, Kyrgyzstan
182 kilometres of slightly saline water at 1,607 metres, with the snow wall of the Terskey Ala-Too standing directly behind the southern shore.
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Lake Bled The island church
Upper Carniola, Slovenia
A tiny church on an islet in the middle of an alpine lake below a clifftop castle — Slovenia's most photographed scene, best reached by traditional pletna boat.
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Crater Lake
Oregon, USA
The deepest lake in the United States fills a collapsed volcano with water of an almost unreal blue, rimmed by cliffs and centred on a small cinder-cone island.
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Lake Atitlán
Sololá, southwestern Guatemala highlands
A deep-blue Guatemalan lake ringed by three volcanoes and Maya villages — often called one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, calmest in the early morning.
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Königssee
Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany
An emerald fjord-like lake walled by Bavarian cliffs, crossed by silent electric boats to the red-domed chapel of St Bartholomä — the water so still it doubles the mountains.
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Pangong Tso
Ladakh, India
A high-altitude Himalayan lake straddling India and Tibet that shifts through astonishing blues and greens across the day at over 4,300 metres.
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Oeschinen Lake
Kandersteg, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
A turquoise glacial lake cupped high above Kandersteg beneath the sheer walls of the Blüemlisalp — a short gondola-and-walk into one of the Alps' loveliest bowls.
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Kelimutu
Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Three crater lakes on one Indonesian volcano that hold different, changing colours — turquoise, olive, near-black — coloured by the minerals stirred within them.
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Morskie Oko
Tatra National Park, Lesser Poland, Poland
The 'Eye of the Sea', the largest and most famous lake in Poland's High Tatras, a green-blue tarn beneath granite peaks reached by a long forest walk.
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Lake Como
Lombardy, northern Italy
The elegant Y-shaped lake of the Italian Alps, deep and mountain-walled, lined with villas and gardens — Europe's grand old lakeside idyll.
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Lake Titicaca
Peru–Bolivia border, Andes
The highest large navigable lake in the world, a vast Andean sea on the Peru–Bolivia border dotted with floating reed islands that are still lived on today.
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The Dead Sea
Jordan Rift Valley, Jordan / Israel / West Bank
The lowest point on Earth's land surface and one of the saltiest bodies of water anywhere — so dense you float without trying, ringed by desert cliffs.
Lakes are creatures of season and light: glacial ones glow brightest in high summer when the melt is peaking, while others are at their stillest at dawn. Each guide notes the best window — and always check current access before a long trip.
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