50 Fun Facts About Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca lies on the border between which two countries?

The western part is in Peru's Puno Region and the eastern side in Bolivia's La Paz Department.

Titicaca is often described as the world's highest what?

The claim refers to commercial craft; the crater lake on Chile's Ojos del Salado sits far higher at around 6,480 metres.

What is the surface elevation of Lake Titicaca?

Tibet's Lake Puma Yumco, at 5,030 metres, is the highest large lake in the world.

By surface area and volume, Lake Titicaca is the largest lake on which continent?

Globally it ranks only 18th largest.

What is the 800-metre-wide strait joining Lake Titicaca's two sub-basins called?

The big basin, Lago Grande, reaches 284 metres deep; the little Wiñaymarka averages just 9 metres.

What is the maximum depth of Lake Titicaca?

The overall average depth is 107 metres, dragged down by the shallow southern basin.

Lake Titicaca's only outlet is which river, which flows south to Lake Poopó?

That outflow accounts for only about 10% of the lake's water loss; wind and high-altitude sun evaporate the other 90%.

How many islands does Lake Titicaca have?

Five major river systems feed the lake, led by the Ramis and the Coata.

Lake Titicaca is usually listed as freshwater, but its water is actually slightly what?

UNESCO puts its salinity at 5.2 to 5.5 parts per thousand; it is nearly a closed lake.

In Aymara, the word 'titi' in the lake's name is usually translated as which animal?

One 1948 reading of titiq'aq'a is 'grey, lead-coloured puma', referring to the sacred rock on the Isla del Sol.

In 2012 the Global Nature Fund gave Titicaca which unwelcome title?

A 2011 UN report had found alarming concentrations of cadmium, arsenic and lead in parts of the lake.

Between April and November 2009 the lake's level dropped how much, reaching its lowest since 1949?

Shorter rainy seasons and the melting of glaciers that feed its tributaries are blamed.

The Uros people build their floating islands from layers of which plant?

The reeds are constantly topped up as the lower layers rot; the largest islands are about half the size of a football pitch.

According to legend, why did the Uros originally build islands that floated?

Many islands still carry watchtowers, and the settlement can be shifted into deep water if threatened.

After what event in 1986 did many Uros rebuild their islands closer to the shore near Puno?

Historically most islands sat about 14 km out near the middle of the lake.

According to Uru legend, the Uros claimed to have blood of what colour, because they never felt the cold?

They called themselves Lupihaques, 'sons of the Sun', and considered themselves the owners of the lake and its water.

Isla del Sol, the largest sacred island, is reached by boat from which Bolivian lakeside town?

The town's 17th-century basilica houses Our Lady of Copacabana, the patron saint of Bolivia, and its feast day is 6 August.

In Inca religion, which deity was believed to have been born on the Isla del Sol?

Isla de la Luna next door is where Viracocha was said to have commanded the moon to rise.

Which first Inca ruler is said in one myth to have emerged from the sacred rock on the Isla del Sol?

Pachacuti later ordered his mummified body moved from Cusco to the island's Temple of the Sun.

Melville's The Confidence-Man opens by comparing a stranger to Manco Cápac rising from where?

The comparison appears in the novel's very first sentence, set at sunrise on 1 April.

On the Peruvian island of Taquile, which craft is performed exclusively by males from the age of eight?

Women spin the yarn and weave; UNESCO named 'Taquile and Its Textile Art' a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Taquile island served for centuries, into the 20th century, as what?

It became the property of the Taquile people in 1970, and their community-run tourism model now hosts about 40,000 visitors a year.

Amantani island's two peaks are named Pachatata and Pachamama. What does Pachamama mean?

About 4,000 Quechua speakers live there in ten communities, with no cars, no hotels and all farming done by hand.

Craftsmen from which Lake Titicaca island helped Thor Heyerdahl build Ra II and Tigris?

It is thought to be the last place where the art of totora reed boat construction survived.

Which pre-Inca civilisation, centred about 70 km from La Paz, built a temple on the Isla de la Luna?

The Inca structures visible on the island today were built directly on top of the earlier ones.

Inca offerings recovered by divers at Khoa reef in Lake Titicaca include incense burners shaped like which animal?

Carved juvenile llamas and fine metal, shell and stone ornaments were dropped there as part of an Inca pilgrimage complex.

Roughly how many aquatic species does Lake Titicaca support?

Around 90% of the fish species in the basin are endemic, including 23 species of Orestias found nowhere else.

The Titicaca orestias, a native fish last seen in 1938, was likely driven extinct by which introduced fish?

The Argentine silverside Odontesthes bonariensis was the other culprit.

What unflattering nickname has the loose-skinned lake amphibian Telmatobius culeus earned?

Its lungs are only a third the normal size, so the folds of skin help it breathe in the cold water.

Which explorer's late-1960s expedition reported Titicaca water frogs of 60 cm and 1 kg?

That makes them some of the largest wholly aquatic frogs on Earth, though most individuals are much smaller.

The Titicaca grebe, a bird largely confined to the lake, is notable for being unable to do what?

It is also known as the short-winged grebe, and Lake Poopó and the Desaguadero serve as spillover territory.

Lake Titicaca was designated a wetland of international importance under which convention in 1998?

BirdLife International also lists it as an Important Bird Area in both Peru and Bolivia.

Titicaca's steamships were built in Britain, then shipped as what?

The Yavari and Yapura kits totalled 2,766 pieces, each light enough for a mule to carry over the Andes.

The steamship Yavari, launched on the lake in 1870, originally burned what fuel?

She was built by Thames Ironworks in 1862 and is now a museum and bunkhouse moored at Puno, the oldest iron lake steamer afloat.

How were the parts of the Yavari carried the last 220 miles from the railhead at Tacna to Puno?

The original contractor gave up on that leg; the job only resumed in 1868, six years after the ships were built.

In November 1883, which country sent a torpedo boat by rail to become the first warship on Lake Titicaca?

The Colo Colo was moved from Mollendo to Puno during the closing phase of the War of the Pacific.

Which Kingston upon Hull shipbuilder built the 79-metre SS Ollanta, long the lake's largest vessel, in 1930?

A new slipway had to be built at Puno just to assemble her; she was launched in November 1931.

A train barge linking Puno and Guaqui, Bolivia, is probably the lake's largest craft. What is it named?

It bridges PeruRail's standard-gauge line and Bolivia's metre-gauge railway.

Puno, founded in 1668, was later renamed San Carlos de Puno in honour of which Spanish king?

Its economy leans on llama and alpaca herding and, less officially, goods smuggled from Bolivia.

Lake Titicaca sits at the northern end of which high, closed drainage basin?

The basin is endorheic, so water leaves mainly by evaporation rather than to the sea.

Bolivians call the small south-eastern part of the lake Lago Huiñaymarca, an Aymara name meaning what?

Peruvians simply call the two parts Lago Pequeño and Lago Grande.

How far back does the environmental record from a lake-bed core east of Isla del Sol go?

It shows the lake was fresher and fuller during global ice ages and lower during warm interglacials.

What is the average surface temperature of Lake Titicaca's water?

Its deep water sits permanently between 10 and 11 °C, and the climate is classed as cold subtropical highland.

Which mountain range surrounds Lake Titicaca?

Its bed lies in the Tinajani Basin, a pull-apart basin formed by faulting that began in the late Oligocene.

Which Peruvian region contains the western part of Lake Titicaca?

The eastern side of the lake lies in Bolivia's La Paz Department.

What share of Lake Titicaca's water loss is due to evaporation rather than outflow?

Strong winds and intense high-altitude sunlight drive the evapotranspiration; the outlet river takes only 10%.

Which river system contributes the largest flow into Lake Titicaca?

Five major river systems and more than 20 smaller streams empty into the lake.

What proportion of the fish species in the Titicaca basin are endemic?

They include 23 species of Orestias found nowhere but the lake.

Which archaeologist directed underwater investigations off the Isla del Sol from 1987 to 1992?

The recovered Inca and Tiahuanaco offerings are displayed in the museum at Challapampa.

Roughly how many Uros lived on the floating islands as of 2011?

They occupied an archipelago of some 60 artificial islands near Puno.