Photos: Lake Urmia-Iran, the third largest salt water lake on earth

The lake (in northwestern Iran) is named after the provincial capital city of Urmia, originally a Syriac name meaning city of water.

Lake Urmia has 102 islands, the second largest island, Kaboudi, is the burial place of Hulagu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan.

One of the early mentioning of Lake Urmia is from the Assyrian records from 9th century BCE.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Due to drought and increased demands for agricultural water in the lake’s basin, the salinity of the lake has risen to more than 300 g/L during recent years, and large areas of the lake bed have been desiccated.

.

Photo Source :  Esfandiar Asghar Khani from shabestan.ir