Lake Geneva

The largest lake on the course of the Rhône and one of the largest in western Europe, sixty per cent Swiss and forty per cent French. Its name has changed with whoever mattered most: lacus Lemannus in Caesar’s day, from a Greek phrase meaning the port’s lake; Lacus Lausonius and Lac de Lausanne in medieval Latin; and Lac de Genève once Geneva rose, which English took as Lake Geneva. Locally and on French maps it has always simply been Le Léman. The lake divides into three parts by how each was formed.