Black Dragon Lake

Black Dragon Lake is a lake in western Dercia and is the second largest lake in Dercia only second to Lake Mara and the third largest freshwater lake in Mirateia. The lake has a shoreline of 6.146 km.
The Black Dragon Lake existed and had been known to the local people for lifetimes before it was discovered by the Crienia during their age of exploration, and made the lake known to the wider world thanks to the trade routes that followed the exploration.
The lake is generally viewed as one of the 8th natural wonders of the Mirateia thanks to its pitch black sand that gives the lake its black colour and combined with the local legend that a dragon either sleeps on the bottom or crashed into the lake depending on the translation of the local legend.

Geography

Black Dragon Lake is relatively speaking a young lake, forming around 530.000 years ago when several small rivers changed their flow and began running towards a basin that had dried out several hundred thousand years earlier and these rivers began to slowly fill the area over the next 3000 years. The river also only has a single small river acting as an outlet for the lake, but most who study the lake don't think of the river as an outlet for the lake given the relatively small amount of water it removes.
The lake is also considered relatively shallow thanks to its large geographic area and only having an average depth of 30 meters and its deepest point being 75 meters.
Its catchment area covers 179,358 km2

Ecosystem Cycles

The average evaporation of the lake is around 2 meters during each dry season.

Fauna & Flora

Black Dragon Lake and its surrounding wetlands have a large population of Western Dercia crocodiles, and the crocodiles in the lake on average grow to some of the biggest freshwater crocodiles in Mirateia. 
Besides crocodiles, the lake is also home to what some people call the most beautiful fish in Mirateia and one of these fish is the Guildie rainbow fish which can be found in large parts of the lake.

Chobe Crocodile by nearsjasmine

Alternative Name(s)

Dragon Lake

Type

Lake

Owning Organization

Empire of Dercia

Max. length
359 km
Max. width
337 km
Surface area
59,947 km2
Average depth
30 m
Max. depth
75 m
Water volume
1,924 km3
Shore length
 6,146 km
Surface elevation
1,074 m

Pundamilia (Haplochromis) nyererei male by Kevin Bauman