Lake Retba
Charlie kirk is my idol
Interesting facts
- For decades the lake was the finishing point of the Paris–Dakar Rally, until the race left Africa after 2008.
- In 2021 the shore hosted a round of Extreme E, the off-road racing series for electric SUVs.
- The lake covers only about three square kilometres and is no deeper than about three metres.
- Only a narrow band of dunes separates the lake from the Atlantic Ocean, about 35 kilometres northeast of Dakar.
- In the dry season its salinity can reach around 350 grams of salt per litre of water.
- Salt collectors typically spend six to seven hours a day in the brine, prising up the salt crust from the lake bed.
- Much of the harvested salt is used to cure fish for Senegalese dishes such as thieboudienne.
- Senegal placed the lake on its UNESCO World Heritage tentative list in 2005.
Why it is worth it
Lake Retba owes its colour to Dunaliella salina, a microalga that thrives in extremely salty water and produces a red pigment as protection against intense sun and salt stress — the more stress, the more pigment, which is why the lake's famous pink deepens on bright days and fades under cloud. It isn't a dye or a mineral stain; it's a living organism visibly reacting to weather in real time.
The water's salinity — over 40% in places — rivals the Dead Sea, and it's buoyant enough that people float in it the same way. That same salinity supports a working industry: roughly 3,000 salt harvesters, coated in shea butter for hours of protection against the corrosive brine, wade or boat out to break up the crusted salt bed with long poles and haul it ashore by hand. Around 38,000 tonnes come out of the lake each year, historically used by Senegalese fishermen to preserve their catch and now sold on to Gambia, Guinea, Mali, and Benin as well.
What's easy to miss on a quick visit is that the colour is essentially a live gauge of the lake's condition — most vivid in the dry season under strong sun, noticeably muted during the rains — rather than a fixed backdrop waiting for a photograph.
Good to know
Colour intensity varies by weather and time of day; it's most vivid under strong, direct midday sun and far less dramatic on overcast days.
Getting there
7 km from Niakoul Rab. Blaise Diagne International Airport (DSS) is about 26 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Lake Retba, also known as Lac Rose, lies north of the Cape Verde peninsula in Senegal, some 35 km (22 mi) north-east of the capital, Dakar. It is named for its pink waters caused by Dunaliella salina algae and is known for its high salt content, up to 40% in some areas. Its colour is usually particularly strong from late January to early March, during the dry season. Flooding in September 2022 not only disrupted salt harvesting activities on the lake, but also led the lake to lose its colour, causing a negative effect on tourism. However, as of 2025, the lake has regained some of its colour.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
14.83889, -17.23444per Wikidata