Talk:Alqueva Dam

Largest artificial lake in Europe
Is it? Some say it's not, but to prove their point they show the List of largest lakes of Western Europe. Are any of this lakes artificial, besides this one? Ordep 18:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good question. Apparently there's a "Largest reservoir in Finland" in 42nd place, while the Alqueva is 51st. Indeed that article doesn't specify, for the most part, which sort of water surface are we dealing with, but "reservoir" seems plain enough for me. --Xyzt1234 (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It could be the largest European dam (i.e., the structure that contains the water), but even then, one has to ask by which measure (height, length, volume, etc.). Alpine dams, such as the Grande Dixence in Switzerland and the ill-fated but still standing Vajont in Italy, are certainly much taller. And Alqueva is definitely not the largest artificial lake in Europe either, as the page linked by Ordep above lists (the italicized entries) no less than 13 larger artificial lakes in European Russia, Ukraine, Finland, and Serbia. Kuybyshev Reservoir is 25 times larger than Alqueva's lake, and Rybinsk is 18 times larger.
 * So, I have replaced the previous text with "The Alqueva Dam constitutes one of the largest dams and artificial lakes (250 km²) in Western Europe." I am going to check if the Portuguese and Spanish language pages need correction as well (Portuguese is my mother tongue and I am also reasonably fluent in Spanish), and if so, I am going to correct them.

--UrsoBR (talk) 14:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)