Lake Lucerne - Geography

Geography

Lake Lucerne borders on the three original Swiss cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden (which today is divided into the Cantons of Obwalden and Nidwalden), as well as the canton of Lucerne, thus the name Vierwaldstättersee (Lake of the Four Forested Cantons). Many of the oldest communities of Switzerland are along the shore, including Küssnacht, Weggis, Vitznau, Gersau, Brunnen, Altdorf, Buochs, and Treib.

Lake Lucerne is singularly irregular and appears to lie in four different valleys, all related to the conformation of the adjoining mountains. The central portion of the lake lies in two parallel valleys whose direction is from west to east, the one lying north, the other south of the ridge of the Bürgenstock. These are connected through a narrow strait, scarcely one kilometre wide, between the two rocky promontories called respectively Untere and Obere Nase. It is not unlikely that the southern of these two divisions of the lake—called Buochser See—formerly extended to the west over the isthmus whereon stands the town of Stans, thus forming an island of the Bürgenstock. The west end of the main branch of the lake, whence a comparatively shallow bay extends to the town of Lucerne, is intersected obliquely by a deep trench whose south-west end is occupied by the branch called Alpnacher See, while the north-east branch forms the long Bay of Küssnacht, Küssnachter See. These both lie in the direct line of a valley that stretches with scarcely a break parallel to the chain of the Bernese Alps from Interlaken to Lake Zug. At the eastern end of the Buochser See, where the containing walls of the lake-valley are directed from east to west, it is joined at an acute angle by the Bay of Uri, or Urner See, lying in the northern prolongation of the deep cleft that gives a passage to the Reuss, between the Bernese chain and the Alps of N. Switzerland.

The Bay of Uri occupies the northernmost and deepest portion of the great cleft of the Valley of the Reuss, which has cut through the Alpine ranges from the St Gotthard Pass to the neighbourhood of Schwyz. From its eastern shore the mountains rise in almost bare walls of rock to a height of from 3,000 ft (910 m) to 4,000 ft (1,200 m) above the water. The two highest summits are the Fronalpstock and the Rophaien (2078 m). Between them the steep glen or ravine of Riemenstalden descends to Sisikon, the only village with Flüelen on that side of the lake. On the opposite or western shore, the mountains attain still greater dimensions. The Niederbauen Chulm is succeeded by the Oberbauenstock, and farther south, above the ridge of the Scharti, appear the snowy peaks of the Uri Rotstock and Brunnistock (2,952 m). In the centre opens the valley of the Reuss, backed by the rugged summits of the Urner and Glarus Alps.

The breadth of these various sections of the lake is very variable, but is usually between one and two miles (3 km). The lake's surface, whose mean height above the sea is 434 metres, is the lowest point of the cantons of Uri, Obwalden and Nidwalden. Originally the lake was susceptible to variations in level and flooding along its shoreline. Between 1859 and 1860, the introduction of a needle dam in the Reuss River in Lucerne, just upstream from the Spreuerbrücke, allowed the lake level to be stabilised.