Lake Parime
For more than two centuries, maps of South America showed a huge lake with a golden city on its shore. It wasn't there.
What was reported
After the Spanish heard stories of El Dorado, a legend grew of a great inland lake called Parime in the Guiana highlands, with the golden city of Manoa on its shore. Sir Walter Raleigh searched for it in 1595.
From the late 1500s, mapmakers drew a huge Lake Parime in the interior of South America, and it stayed on many maps until the early 1800s.
Explanations offered
Explorers including Alexander von Humboldt and later Robert Schomburgk found no such lake. The legend may have grown from the Rupununi savannah, which floods widely in the rainy season, forming large temporary lakes. There was never a golden city.
- When
- On maps from the 1500s to the 1800s
- Where
- Rupununi savannah, Guyana
- Witnesses
- Explorers and mapmakers
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.