You may know the common German word for
lake, which is
der See. Yes, it looks a lot like
sea, but that's more commonly known as
das Meer unless you're being poetic and then you can call it
die See. German is NOT straightforward - a claim I've heard recently and which I find a little naive.
To make it all the more complicated there is also
das Maar, which is a special kind of lake (and even that is not always true).
The word derives from the dialect of the
Eifel region for the lakes of the region and in its most scientific definition it pertains to a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). Thanks,
wikipedia! Often, these craters fill with water and then you get a Maar lake, but they also dry out (on their own or through human intervention) and then they become known as dry maars or
Trockenmaare.
Among the most famous
Maare are three lakes situated in close proximity in the Eifel near Daun. Here is one of them, the
Schalkenmehrener Maar named for the village of
Schalkenmehren which you can see in the background.
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