Lake Tsimanampetsotsa
lake in Madagascar
Lake Tsimanampetsotsa (French: Lac Tsimanampetsotsa) (also called Lake Tsimanampesotse) is a moderately alkaline lake in the Toliara Province, in the southwestern part of Madagascar. It is located at around 24°07′S 43°45′E. The lake is protected within Tsimanampetsotsa National Park and it is also within a Ramsar site. The Ramsar site has a total area of 456 km2 (176 sq mi), while the surface of the lake is much smaller.
The name of the lake in Malagasy means "lake without dolphins". It is a sacred place for worship, ceremonies and rituals. Local taboos prevent water pollution. Swimming and the utilisation of pirogues is prohibited. Water, mud and some plants from the lake are used in traditional medicine (Tahirindraza and Marikandia 2015).
The lake is about 20 km (12 mi) long, about 2 km (1.2 mi) wide and is quite shallow (maximum depth about 2 m (6 ft 7 in)). It is situated in a collapse area of the Mahfaly Plateau, in a closed evaporite basin with cliffs of Eocene marine limestone to the east and a wide strip of alluvium, capping low outcrops of limestone to the west.
“Lake Tsimanampetsotsa” enters the record as lake in Madagascar. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lake, Tsimanampetsotsa and lake can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2024048. The first chronological checks are 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lake Tsimanampetsotsa” 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.