Lake Amik

Lake Amik or the Lake of Antioch (Arabic: بحيرة العمق‎) (Turkish: Amik Gölü) was a large freshwater lake in the basin of the Orontes River in Hatay Province, Turkey; it was located north-east of the ancient city of Antioch (modern Antakya). The lake was drained during a period from the 1940s-1970s.

Lake Amik was located in the centre of Amik Plain (Turkish: Amik Ovası) on the northernmost part of the Dead Sea Transform and historically covered an area of some 300-350 square kilometres, increasing during flood periods. It was surrounded by extensive marshland.

Sedimentary analysis has suggested that Lake Amik was formed, in its final state, in the past 3000 years by episodic floods and silting up of the outlet to the Orontes. This dramatic increase in the lake's area had displaced many settlements during the classical period; the lake became an important source of fish and shellfish for the surrounding area and the city of Antioch. The 14th century Arab geographer Abu al-Fida described the lake as having sweet water and being twenty miles (32 km) long and seven wide, while an 18th-century traveller, Richard Pococke, noted that it was then locally called "Bahr-Agoule (the White Lake) by reaſon of the colour of its waters".

By the 20th century, the lake supported around 50,000 inhabitants in 70 villages, who took part in stock raising, reed harvesting, fishing (with a particularly significant eel fishery) and agriculture, crops and fodder being grown on pastures formed during the summer as the lake waters receded. They also constructed dwellings, locally known as Huğ, from reeds gathered in the lake.

Lake Amik was an extremely valuable habitat on the migratory routes of waterfowl and other birds, especially white storks and pelicans, and was noted for an isolated breeding population of the African darter. It also supported populations of endemic birds; a possible distinct subspecies of the black francolin (Francolinus francolinus billypayni) and the similarly distinct southern Turkish bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus kosswigi). A ray-finned fish species Hemigrammocapoeta caudomaculata was only known from Lake Amik, while the cyprinid Jordan himri was found nowhere else in Turkey.

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