Sørvágsvatn — lake
kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sørvágsvatn

  • Elevation32 m
  • 1 min read
  • 62.050° N 7.233° W

Interesting facts

  • Neighbouring villages still disagree on its name: Sørvágur calls it Sørvágsvatn, Miðvágur and Sandavágur call it Leitisvatn, and most locals simply say Vatnið, the lake.
  • Covering about 3.4 square kilometres, it is more than three times the size of Fjallavatn, the Faroes' second-largest lake, also on Vágar.
  • The lake is about six kilometres long but only around 800 metres across at its widest point.
  • Its deepest point, 59 metres down, lies well below sea level, even though the surface sits only about 32 metres above the ocean.
  • In 1941 a Catalina flying boat of RAF Coastal Command became the first aircraft to land on the lake, which the British used as a seaplane base.
  • The wartime British airfield built beside the lake later became Vágar Airport, the only airport in the Faroe Islands.
  • Vatnsoyrar, at the lake's northern end, is the only village in the Faroe Islands that does not stand on the coast.
  • The lake's outflow ends in Bøsdalafossur, a waterfall about 30 metres high that drops straight into the Atlantic.

Why it is worth it

Sørvágsvatn is the largest lake in the Faroe Islands, sitting on Vágar just tens of meters above sea level and draining to the Atlantic over the short Bøsdalafossur waterfall. Its fame rests entirely on where you stand: from the Trælanípa cliff, the sea cliffs framing both the lake and the ocean beyond erase any normal sense of scale, making the lake appear to float hundreds of meters above the water when the real vertical gap between them is only around 30 meters. It's one of the most convincing naturally occurring optical illusions on Earth, and it only works from specific vantage points on the ridge — walk down to the shoreline and it looks like an ordinary lake near a coast.

Trælanípa means 'slave cliff,' and local tradition holds that during the Viking and medieval settlement of the islands, enslaved people no longer able to work were pushed to their deaths from this exact edge — a grim historical layer under a spot now visited almost entirely for photography.

Because the illusion depends on clear sightlines to both waterlines at once, the notoriously changeable Faroese weather can simply erase it: fog or low cloud, common on these islands, can reduce the view to nothing even when you're standing in the right spot.

Good to know

The hike out to the Trælanípa viewpoint is roughly 5 km round trip, exposed to wind along the cliff edge for most of the way — worth checking conditions before setting out.

Best time to visit

May to August tends to bring the driest, clearest conditions for actually seeing the illusion resolve; foggy days are common in every season here.

Getting there

25 km from Tórshavn. Vágar Airport (FAE) is about 3 km away.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the Faroe Islands 12The Most Beautiful Water Wonders in the Faroe Islands 6The Most Beautiful Lakes 105The Most Beautiful Water Wonders 429

From the encyclopaedia

Leitisvatn, sometimes called Sørvágsvatn, is the largest lake in the Faroe Islands. It is situated on the island of Vágar, between the municipalities of Sørvágur and Vágar. The local reference is mostly just Vatnið. The area is 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), more than three times the size of Fjallavatn, the second largest lake, also located on Vágar.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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