Turkey: Lake Salda hosts over 800,000 visitors in 2020

By Bilal Altiok

BURDUR, Turkey (AA) – Over 800,000 people visited Turkey’s Lake Salda dubbed as the Turkish Maldives due to its crystal clear water in the southwestern province.

In a statement, the governorship of Burdur said that despite the novel coronavirus epidemic over 800,000 people visited the site.

Salda Lake was closed for about two and a half months due to coronavirus epidemic measures and opened to visitors since June 1 last year.

Due to the high interest, the entrance to the lake and beach in the “White Islands” region of Salda was closed by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization as of Oct. 15 as part of conservation efforts.

In 2019, nearly 1.5 million people visited the site.

Last summer, similarities between the lake and the Jezero Crater on Mars has captured the interest of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in its research on possible life on the Red Planet.

The mineral makeup between the Martian crater and Lake Salda in Burdur province, Turkey, was established with morphological and remote sensing, Candan Gokceoglu, a professor of geological engineering at Hacettepe University in Turkey's capital Ankara, told Anadolu Agency.

"You may not be able to travel to Jezero Crater on Mars, but you can visit the next best thing: Lake Salda, Turkey," said NASA's Earth Observatory.

Also known as Turkey's Maldives, the lake in Turkey's southwestern Burdur province has been a popular destination for tourists in recent years with its white beach and clear water.