Egirdir (formerly Eğridir) is the name of a lake and of the town situated on the shore of that lake (Eğirdir) in Turkey. The lake is 186 kilometers (116 miles) north of Antalya. Lake Eğirdir (Eğirdir Gölü) has two islands, connected to the mainland by a long causeway into the town of Eğirdir, which contains a castle said to have been built by Croesus, king of Lydia, though additions were built by the Romans, Byzantines and Seljuks. It is the fourth largest (second largest freshwater) lake in Turkey.

The town and the lake were formerly called Eğridir, a Turkish pronunciation of the town’s old Hellenic name Akrotiri. Unfortunately, Eğridir means "it is crooked" in Turkish. Therefore, to remove the negative connotations of the name, in the 1980s the “i” and the “r” were transposed in a new official name, thus creating Eğirdir, a name that evokes spinning and flowers, although many people in Turkey still call, both the town and the lake, Eğridir. ^*

External links

• Egirdir Guide and Photo Album

Lakes of Turkey

Eğirdir