Do Lake Names Reflect Their Properties?(ivanludvig.dev)
ivanludvig.dev
Do Lake Names Reflect Their Properties?
https://ivanludvig.dev/tech/lake-colors
44 comments
I live close to the Paranoá lake, that on the indigenous language it comes from means "lake"...
I'd say it's descriptive.
I'd say it's descriptive.
I also found Vesijärvi on the map in the next municipality over. "Water lake". As opposed to what other type of lake exactly?
Salt? I don't know if there are any in finland tho.
Does finnish differentiate between fresh and sea water? If it's near the coast I imagine it could have been named thus to differentiate it from a nearby gulf?
Does finnish differentiate between fresh and sea water? If it's near the coast I imagine it could have been named thus to differentiate it from a nearby gulf?
"Vesi" means generically any kind of water and there are compound words for seawater and freshwater just like in English. There are several Vesijärvis in Finland, and now that I googled it, it's conjectured that the word vesi in the name does not refer to the water in the lake but rather derives from an archaic word meaning "outlet river".
The color of a lake in satellite view depends on the satellite's viewing angle (which depends on the satellite's trajectory and the lake's location), the angle of the sun (which depends on the same things plus the time and date the image was taken), the weather, the satellite's sensors (false color is a thing), and how the images are processed before publishing. Overall I think it's almost impossible to estimate the "true" color of a lake from public satellite images, even if you used all pixels instead of just one.
Also, I think most usually the lake names come from the color they have when see from the ground, rather than from above.
For example, a lake might be blue when viewed from space, but the locals can still call it a "Black Lake" because it's surrounded by mountains made of dark rocks, and when you stand at its shore you can typically see them reflected in its surface, giving an overall impression of a black color.
For example, a lake might be blue when viewed from space, but the locals can still call it a "Black Lake" because it's surrounded by mountains made of dark rocks, and when you stand at its shore you can typically see them reflected in its surface, giving an overall impression of a black color.
Yeah I stopped taking this post seriously when I read this sentence:
> I fetched the satellite image tile for the zoomed-in region of each lake center and read a single pixel at the center of the tile, which should give us an idea of the lake’s color
> I fetched the satellite image tile for the zoomed-in region of each lake center and read a single pixel at the center of the tile, which should give us an idea of the lake’s color
Well, I mean, it's an idea.
It’s a model, it might not be perfect, but you also need to decide how much scientific rigor and effort you want to invest in this problem.
To be honest, just picking a random pixel would have been fine, too, anything else is an overkill.
To be honest, just picking a random pixel would have been fine, too, anything else is an overkill.
Obviously this is just for fun, but I am a bit disturbed about similar projects that try to gain some meaningful insights out of vast public data sets without the slightest attention paid to the quality of the data used. It doesn’t matter how much processing you do or how clever your algorithms are if the underlaying data is inaccurate, out of date, inconsistent, non-normalized, incomplete, etc. No dataset is perfect, but at least take some time to address it.
Also they didn't consider that a green lake, while it may not appear green, can still be more green than all the other types of lake.
> I am a bit disturbed about similar projects that try to gain some meaningful insights out of vast public data sets without the slightest attention paid to the quality of the data used.
Indeed, this story is a very good example of that in the academic world (Economics): https://nitter.poast.org/andreloez/status/181747110580160124...
Indeed, this story is a very good example of that in the academic world (Economics): https://nitter.poast.org/andreloez/status/181747110580160124...
What, no brown lakes? In Finland there are 121 lakes called "Paskalampi", lit. "Shit Lake".
https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=paskalampi#map=18...
Then again, at least this is more descriptive than the 13 called Vesijärvi, or "Water Lake".
https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=paskalampi#map=18...
Then again, at least this is more descriptive than the 13 called Vesijärvi, or "Water Lake".
So in "Paskalampi" and "Vesijärvi", which part of it means "lake"? Naively (I have obviously no clue about finnish), I would have expected some syllables (or token in modern LLM terminology) to occur in both names (i.e. representing the "lake" part).
Well, here in Massachusetts we have Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, which doesn't describe its color but does mean "lake divided by islands" and is a pretty accurate, if long winded, description of it.
Growing up I was told it actually meant something like "you fish over there, I fish over here, nobody fishes in the middle" and that is was some sort of territory boundary.
There is Nuclear lake on the Appalachian trail in Dutchess county, NY. Its name is or is not accidental, depending on how you look at it.
https://www.scenichudson.org/explore-the-valley/outdoor-adve...
https://www.scenichudson.org/explore-the-valley/outdoor-adve...
I can assure you that "Jack The Horse Lake" in Northern MN absolutely reflects whatever you think that name implies.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Jack+the+Horse+Lake/@47.61...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Jack+the+Horse+Lake/@47.61...
During a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in my youth, we portaged through Party Lake. I am sad to report no revelry occurred.
However, Mud Lake definitely lived up to its name.
However, Mud Lake definitely lived up to its name.
Minnesota has several lakes named "Mud Lake," one of which I have spent considerable time around. The surrounding area is on top of a huge water table. It's normal for a house with a ~900 sq ft basement to have two(!) sump pumps, and for both of them to run daily(!). Before there was a housing development there, I imagine it would have been very, very muddy. The lake itself isn't particularly muddy, though.
We have a 'red lake' in Romania that is fairly recent (river dammed by an earthquake in 1838). It looks just muddy to me. It may have been red when it formed due to water with iron oxides or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_(Romania)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_(Romania)
Lake Superior got its name “on account of its being superior in magnitude to any of the lakes on that vast continent”.
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I was surprised to learn that, while the suburb of Silver Lake in LA is in fact named after the water reservoir at its centre, the reservoir itself is actually named after former water commissioner Herman Silver. The way its serene surface reflects the city and the mountains beyond? Just a coincidence.
Or maybe that was a factor in why the name change was successful? There can be more than one reason for a name.
Good read. Most lakes around southern India seem to derive their name from small kingdoms that once occupied the land.
Many of them don’t have meanings and I’m not sure what they mean to further analyse like you did.
Many of them don’t have meanings and I’m not sure what they mean to further analyse like you did.
In the west of Ireland there are two lakes:
Lough Yganavan and Lough Nambrackdarrig.
The spellings come from the anglicisation of
1. Sandy Lake and
2. Red Trout Lake
so the namers kept things simple in their native tongue but now the names are almost indecipherable.
That seems common enough.
The spellings come from the anglicisation of
1. Sandy Lake and
2. Red Trout Lake
so the namers kept things simple in their native tongue but now the names are almost indecipherable.
That seems common enough.
Some lakes undergo drastic changes through the seasons. I know of a few that go from dark blue(late fall, early spring) to brown(spring runoff sediment) to dark green(algae in summer) in a single year.
The three lakes of Kelimutu in Indonesia are famous for changing color on a multi-year cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelimutu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelimutu
In the Grand Teton mountains, at 9,500 ft. (2,895 meters) elevation, there is a "Surprise Lake" at the top of the hiking trail, which is kind of surprising when you get there.
When I was learning SCUBA, one of our sessions happened in Tea Lake (learning how to do an emergency swim ascent). I can vouch for its name accurately representing its properties.
I went to Lake Superior and it was soooo cold to me.
John Prine’s song “Lake Marie” is a great song and story of a lake and its name.
Bob Dylan ranks it as his favorite Prine song.
Bob Dylan ranks it as his favorite Prine song.
I'm sorry, but I can't help myself with this one... https://youtu.be/dalNQF8NmIs?si=lHyKeTiCLDFczZk6
If there's one thing I hate, it's stuck up bodies of water. It's like, get over yourself, Lake Superior.
(a Norm Macdonald joke, RIP.)
(a Norm Macdonald joke, RIP.)
On the Pacific Crest Trail, there is a lake called Gillette Lake presumably because it's the best a man can get. I, for one, quite liked it, as it's bright turquoise due to rock flour.
There's also Särkijärvi, "roach lake" (as in the fish) nearby; presumably there is (or once was) a healthy roach population there.
The most common lake name in Finland is Pyhäjärvi, literally "holy lake" or "sacred lake", but apparently the original meaning of the word pyhä was something like "demarcated" or "dedicated" (in modern Finnish the verb pyhittää means "to sanctify" but also "to devote" or "to dedicate"). So many of these waterbodies may have been named after ancient border or boundary agreements of some sort, pertaining to fishing or hunting rights for example. Rather mundane stuff despite the word's contemporary meaning!