The Most Beautiful Lagoons in Europe
6 places in 6 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful lagoons in Europe are Bay of Kotor (Montenegro), Jökulsárlón (Iceland) and Balos Lagoon (Greece). The list covers 6 lagoons in 6 countries. Greece has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Europe's lagoons are as varied as its coastlines. Along the Mediterranean, shallow bays enclosed by sandbars and reefs warm quickly and take on vivid shades of turquoise over pale sand; in the Atlantic islands, volcanic craters and landslides create small lagoons at the foot of cliffs; and in Iceland, a glacier retreating from the sea has left a lagoon full of floating ice. The word covers very different water bodies, but all of them are places where the sea or a glacier has been partly held back.
The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro winds deep inland between steep limestone mountains, with the walled town of Kotor at its head and the islet church of Our Lady of the Rocks off Perast. Jökulsárlón, on Iceland's south coast, formed as the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier pulled back from the shore; icebergs calve into it, drift towards the sea and wash up as fragments on the black sand nearby. Balos Lagoon on the northwest tip of Crete is a sheet of shallow water between the Gramvousa peninsula and Cape Tigani, edged with pale, pinkish sand.
In the Atlantic, Charco Verde at El Golfo on Lanzarote lies in a volcanic crater half eaten away by the sea, its water an unexpected green against black sand and red cliffs. Fajã dos Cubres on São Jorge in the Azores is a flat strip of land at the foot of high cliffs, holding a small lagoon. And the Blue Lagoon between Comino and Cominotto in Malta is a channel of clear water over white sand.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bay of Kotor | Lake | Montenegro | |
| 2 | Jökulsárlón | Lagoon | Iceland | |
| 3 | Balos Lagoon | Lagoon | Greece | |
| 4 | Charco Verde | Lagoon | Spain | |
| 5 | Blue Lagoon, Comino | Lagoon | Malta | |
| 6 | Fajã dos Cubres | Lagoon | Portugal |
01 Bay of Kotor
Бока Которска
Montenegro42.450° N 18.670° E
Image by VeleMarinkovic from Pixabay The bay's shape did more than create a nice view: it built a natural fortress. The inlet narrows to just 300 metres at the Verige Strait before opening back out into a wide inner basin, a chokepoint narrow enough that a chain could once be stretched across it to block enemy ships — which is exactly what happened during multiple historical sieges. Whoever controlled that strait controlled the entire inner bay, and the town of Kotor at its innermost point became worth fighting over for exactly that reason: a harbour effectively immune to naval assault, backed by mountains that supplied both limestone for building and timber for ships.
Did you know? The Sopot spring near Risan is usually dry, but after heavy rain a waterfall bursts from the cliff about 20 metres above the sea.
02 Jökulsárlón
Iceland64.076° N 16.230° W
Kenny Muir · CC BY 2.0 Its beauty lies in the ice. Blocks break off the glacier face and float out into the lagoon in shades from chalk white to glassy, ink-stained blue. They drift, turn over and slowly melt, and only when they have shrunk enough can they slip through the short channel to the Atlantic. On the black sand on either side of the outlet, stranded fragments glitter on the shore, a stretch now known as Diamond Beach. Seals gather at the mouth of the lagoon, and Arctic terns, skuas and other seabirds hunt the fish and krill that the tides bring in.
Did you know? During the Little Ice Age the glacier advanced again, and by about 1890 its front stood within about a kilometre of the coast.
03 Balos Lagoon
Λιμνοθάλασσα του Μπάλου
Greece · 39.5 km from Chania35.582° N 23.589° E
dronepicr · CC BY 2.0 The colours are what people remember: white sand shot through with a pinkish tinge from crushed shells, water shallow enough to wade across wide stretches, and the grey-brown limestone slopes of the peninsula, scrubby and treeless, closing the view on three sides. The best way to see its shape is from the path that descends from the ridge above, where the whole lagoon opens below like a map. The peninsula belongs to a protected natural area, and the landscape has been spared building of any kind.
Did you know? The lagoon and its surroundings are protected under the European Natura 2000 network.
04 Charco Verde
Spain · 28.3 km from Arrecife28.977° N 13.828° W
Chrumps · CC BY-SA 4.0 The lagoon is roughly 100 metres long and covers about 7,100 square metres, running parallel to the shoreline. It formed in an old volcanic crater that subsided under its own weight and was invaded by the sea; the crater rim, whose last eruption dates to the eighteenth century, still rises as a curved wall of layered rock on the eastern side. The pool is fed by seawater seeping through the beach rather than by an open channel. Its colour comes from living organisms: the aquatic plant Ruppia maritima and algae thrive in the mineral-rich, salty water, and sulphur in the water adds to the effect. The black beach between the lagoon and the sea is speckled with green crystals of olivine.
Did you know? Nearly half of the original volcanic cone has been carried away by the Atlantic, which is why the crater opens like an amphitheatre towards the sea.
05 Blue Lagoon, Comino
Malta · 21.4 km from Valletta36.014° N 14.323° E
Image by Alehandra13 from Pixabay Comino itself is a scrap of land of about 3.5 square kilometres lying between Malta and Gozo, named after the cumin that once grew there, with no cars and almost no permanent residents. The whole island is a nature reserve and bird sanctuary, and its sea cliffs hold breeding colonies of yelkouan shearwaters; parts of the lagoon were declared an area of ecological importance in 2002. Above the lagoon to the south-west rises St Mary's Tower, a square watchtower with corner turrets built in 1618 by the Knights of St John under Grand Master Wignacourt, part of the chain of signal towers that once guarded the channel against corsairs.
Did you know? Comino now has a permanent population of just two people, and a priest and a policeman commute over from Gozo to serve the island.
06 Fajã dos Cubres
Portugal38.534° N 28.629° W
Alberto Garcia from Cartagena, Spain · CC BY-SA 2.0 75 square kilometres in the parish of Ribeira Seca, municipality of Calheta. Much of its present size is attributed to the earthquake of 9 July 1757, the most violent recorded in the Azores, which triggered landslides and rockfalls along the coast and killed more than a thousand people on São Jorge. The lagoon has no open channel to the ocean; seawater filters in through the ground, so the western part is markedly salty while the eastern part is nearly fresh, mild enough to support a small population of frogs. Four small islets dot its surface, and beds of the aquatic plant Ruppia maritima grow in its water, a rarity in the archipelago.
Did you know? The fajã has no permanent springs or streams, so most of its houses depend on cisterns that collect rainwater.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful lagoons in Europe?
- On our list, Bay of Kotor (Montenegro) ranks first, followed by Jökulsárlón (Iceland) and Balos Lagoon (Greece).
- Which country has the most lagoons in Europe?
- In our collection, the most come from Greece (1), Iceland (1) and Malta (1).
- Is the Bay of Kotor a fjord?
- Not in the strict sense. It is often called a fjord because of its steep sides, but it is a submerged river canyon, a ria, rather than a valley carved by glaciers.
- Why is the lagoon at El Golfo on Lanzarote green?
- The colour comes from algae that thrive in the lagoon's very salty water, which is connected to the sea by seepage through the volcanic sand. The black beach and red crater walls make the green stand out even more.
- How did Jökulsárlón form?
- It appeared in the twentieth century as the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier retreated, leaving a basin that filled with meltwater and seawater. The lagoon has grown steadily as the glacier continues to melt back.
- How many lagoons are on this list in Europe?
- The list covers 6 lagoons in 6 countries. Greece has the most, with 1.