Lake Atitlán
crater lake in the Western Highlands of Guatemala
Lake Atitlán (Spanish: Lago de Atitlán, [atiˈtlan]) is a large natural lake in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The lake is located in the Sololá Department of southwestern Guatemala. With a maximum depth of 340 metres (1,120 ft), it is the deepest lake in Central America.
Name
Atitlán means "between the waters". In the Nahuatl language, atl is the word for water, and titlan means "between". The tl at the end of the word atl is dropped when the lexeme is combined with suffixes (because it is a grammatical suffix), to which is added the -ti- connector for certain adverbs, and the -tlan suffix which means "in between, beside, near", so that the combined elements form Atitlán.
Geography
The lake has a maximum depth of about 340 metres (1,120 ft) and an average depth of 154 metres (505 ft). It is approximately 18 km × 8 km (11.2 mi × 5.0 mi) with a surface area of 130.1 km2 (50.2 sq mi), and contains around 20 km3 (4.8 cu mi) of water. Atitlán is an endorheic lake, fed by two nearby rivers and not draining into the ocean. It is shaped by deep surrounding escarpments and three volcanoes on its southern flank.
“Lake Atitlán” enters the record as crater lake in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lake, Atitlán and crater can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Lake Atitlán” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lake, Atitlán and crater provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q273276. VIAF identifies the subject as 315530206. The Library of Congress control number is sh85009162. Authority coordinates are 14.700, -91.200. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Lake Atitlán” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.