Chungará Lake
lake
Chungará is a lake situated in the extreme north of Chile at an elevation of 4,517 metres (14,820 ft), in the Altiplano of Arica y Parinacota Region in the Lauca National Park. It has a surface area of about 21.5–22.5 square kilometres (8.3–8.7 sq mi) and has a maximum depth of about 26–40 metres (85–131 ft). It receives inflow through the Río Chungara with some minor additional inflows, and loses most of its water to evaporation; seepage into the Laguna Quta Qutani plays a minor role.
The lake formed between 8,000 and 17,000 years ago when the volcano Parinacota collapsed and the debris from the collapse dammed the Lauca River. Since then the lake has progressively grown owing to decreasing seepage. The lake is part of the Lauca National Park; a planned diversion of the lake's waters into the Azapa Valley being abandoned after a decision by the Chilean Supreme Court.
Name
The name Chungará or Chungara is derived from the Aymara language and has several different meanings: Chunka, a type of bush or moss plus the suffix ra that signifies "covered by"; but this meaning appears to have fallen into disuse. A second meaning is Chunkha "beard" which together with the suffix means "bearded" and refers to a myth of a bearded man that came to the area and destroyed a community with fire.
Geography
Chungará Lake is located in the northernmost part of Chile and close to the border with Bolivia. It lies at an elevation of 4,517 metres (14,820 ft) in the Chilean Altiplano; it is one of the highest lakes in the world and the second highest-largest after Lake Titicaca in the Altiplano.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Chungará Lake” is lake. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chungará, Lake and lake, not as a finished interpretation.
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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 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q287760. Authority coordinates are -18.242, -69.153. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chungará Lake” 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.