Bala Lake

Bala Lake ([ˈbala]; Welsh: Llyn Tegid, also often known as Llyn Tegid to English speakers) is a lake in Gwynedd. The name Tegid may be related to Welsh teg, meaning "fair".

It was the largest natural body of water in Wales before its level was raised by Thomas Telford to help support the flow of the Ellesmere Canal.

It is 3.7 miles (6.0 km) long by 0.5 miles (0.8 km) wide, and is subject to sudden and dangerous floods.

The River Dee runs through it and the waters of the lake are famously deep and clear.

The town of Bala sits at its north-eastern end and the narrow-gauge Bala Lake Railway runs for 3 miles (5 km) along the lake's south-eastern shore, and continues south-westward to the village of Llanuwchllyn (whose name means "above the lake").

The lake lies in a glacial valley which follows the Bala to Tal-y-Llyn fault line. The valley was blocked by a terminal moraine in the area of the village of Bala, thus forming the lake, which has remarkably straight and parallel sides.

George Borrow wrote of the lake in Wild Wales in 1856, "The lake has certainly not its name, which signifies 'Lake of Beauty', for nothing". In English the lake is named after the nearby town of Bala,