| Lac de Villeneuve-de-la-Raho | |
| Pushpin Map: | Pyrenees |
| Location: | Pyrénées-Orientales |
| Coords: | 42.631°N 2.9036°W |
| Lake Type: | reservoir |
| Inflow: | canal de Perpignan |
| Basin Countries: | France |
| Area: | 2.01km2 |
| Max-Depth: | 14m (46feet) |
| Volume: | 17.9e6m3 |
| Elevation: | 150m (490feet) |
Lac de Villeneuve-de-la-Raho is a lake in the town of Villeneuve-de-la-Raho in Pyrénées-Orientales, France.
The lake lies in a deflation pan. That is a natural, circular, shallow depression caused by the removal of fairly loose, mainly Pliocene, sediment by wind erosion, during very cold, windy phases of the Quaternary period. It is the largest of a number of such deflation pans in this area.[1] [2]
The former lake of Villeneuve-de-la-Raho had a size of 150ha. Considered useless, it was dried in 1854, and the land was then used for agriculture. Recovered by the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales, it was filled with water and became a lake once again in 1977.