Superlative · turquoise water
The Most Beautiful Turquoise Water on Earth
13 places · every one real, mapped, and worth the trip
Few things stop you like impossibly blue water. Rock flour ground by glaciers, dissolved travertine, pure limestone springs, and mineral-rich crater lakes all scatter light in ways that turn water turquoise, emerald, or a deep electric blue. This is our editors' pick of the most beautiful turquoise and blue water on Earth.
It isn't a strict ranking. Each is a real, mapped place with an honest note on why the water is that colour and how to reach it — because the shade often depends on the season, the light, and the angle of the sun.
-
Banff & Moraine Lake Glacial blue
Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Canada's Moraine Lake, an intense turquoise from glacial rock flour, ringed by the Valley of the Ten Peaks.
-
Jiuzhaigou Coloured pools
Sichuan Province, China
A Chinese valley of terraced lakes and pools glowing turquoise, blue, and green over pale mineral beds and sunken forests.
-
Plitvice Lakes
Lika, central Croatia
Croatia's sixteen travertine lakes shifting from azure to green as light and mineral content change through the day.
-
Oeschinen Lake
Kandersteg, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
A Swiss alpine lake of deep turquoise cupped beneath the sheer walls and waterfalls of the Blüemlisalp.
-
Marble Caves
General Carrera Lake, Aysén, Chile
Chilean marble caverns whose swirled walls glow turquoise from the light reflecting up off General Carrera Lake.
-
The Yucatán Cenotes Blue cenotes
Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
Mexico's limestone sinkholes opening onto pools of astonishingly clear blue freshwater in the Yucatán jungle.
-
Kelimutu
Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Three crater lakes on an Indonesian volcano that hold different, changing colours — turquoise, green, and near-black — from their dissolved minerals.
-
Kayangan Lake, Coron
Coron Island, Palawan, Philippines
A Philippine lake ringed by karst cliffs, famed as some of the cleanest, clearest turquoise water in Asia.
-
The Verzasca River
Verzasca Valley, Ticino, Southern Switzerland
An emerald-green Swiss river so clear you can see straight to the smooth stones on its bed.
-
Semuc Champey
Alta Verapaz, central Guatemala
Guatemala's staircase of turquoise limestone pools bridging a river that runs through the rock beneath them.
-
Río Celeste The measured blue
Tenorio Volcano National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
The one turquoise on this list whose cause has been pinned down in a laboratory — particle growth at a confluence scattering light toward the blue.
-
Königssee
Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany
A deep, clear emerald lake in the Bavarian Alps, walled by steep forested mountains.
-
Pangong Tso
Ladakh, India
A high Himalayan lake in Ladakh whose water shifts through blues and greens across the day beneath bare mountains.
The colour is never fixed: glacial lakes are most vivid in late summer when meltwater carries the most rock flour, travertine pools glow best under high sun, and calm, clear days beat cloudy or wind-stirred ones. Each guide notes the timing and how to reach it.
Added