Lake Managua

The Managua (Spanish: Lago de Managua), also Xolotlan, is one of the two large freshwater lakes of the Central American country Nicaragua. It lies at the Momotombo Volcano ( 1258 m), reaches a length of almost 60 kilometers and is up to 32 kilometers wide. Its area is about 1134 square kilometers. In the south east it is connected via the Río Tipitapa with Lake Nicaragua. In the southwest of the peninsula Chiltepe protrudes about ten kilometers into the lake with the volcano complex Apoyeque.

In Nicaragua's capital Managua on the southern shore of the lake is currently home to over one million people, one-fifth of the entire population of Nicaragua. For a long time the sewage were pumped directly and untreated into the lake. This was the lake as biologically as good as dead Supported by the Federal Republic of Germany, which provided 25 million euros, was started in 2004 with the construction of a sewage treatment plant. The new wastewater treatment plant was inaugurated in February 2009 and 120,000 cubic meters of waste water every day now filters. Since then, the lake has recovered significantly.