Lake Müritz

Lake Müritz (area 115.3sq.km/44.5sq.mi) is the largest lake in the Mecklenburg lake district. The name is Slav, meaning "sea," and indeed this great sheet of water, surrounded by woodland and fields, has the aspect of a sea and can be stormy with threatening waves.

The lake has an average depth of about 6.50m/21ft, with a maximum depth of 31m/102ft. It lies at an altitude of 62m/203ft above sea level, considerably higher than the second largest of the Mecklenburg lakes, the Schweriner See (37.40m/123ft). Thus, like the other "Great Lakes" drained by the river Elde to the Elbe, it is one of the Obere Seen (Upper Lakes) in the Mecklenburg lake district. It is linked by the Müritz-Havel Canal with the upper Havel and the numerous lakes in that area.