Lac de Villeneuve-de-la-Raho

Lac de Villeneuve-de-la-Raho is a lake in the town of Villeneuve-de-la-Raho in Pyrénées-Orientales, France.

The lake lies in a deflation pan. That is a natural, circular, shallow depression caused by the removal of fairly loose, mainly Pliocene, sediment by wind erosion, during very cold, windy phases of the Quaternary period. It is the largest of a number of such deflation pans in this area.

History
The former lake of Villeneuve-de-la-Raho had a size of 150 ha. Considered useless, it was dried in 1854, and the land was then used for agriculture. Recovered by the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales, it was filled with water and became a lake once again in 1977.