page_title: Lake Pukaki
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Pukaki / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Astronaut's photo of Lake Pukaki and the West Coast, with the Southern Alps in between, on New Zealand's South Island. Northwest at top of image.
context_page_description: Lake Pukaki is the largest of three roughly parallel alpine lakes running north–south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin on New Zealand's South Island. The others are Lakes Tekapo and Ohau. All three lakes were formed when the terminal moraines of receding glaciers blocked their respective valleys, forming moraine-dammed lakes.
context_section_description: The glacial feed to the lakes gives them a distinctive blue colour, created by glacial flour, the extremely finely ground rock particles from the glaciers.
  Lake Pukaki covers an area of 178.7 km², and the surface elevation of the lake normally  ranges from 518.2 to 532 metres above sea level.
  The lake is fed at its northern end by the braided Tasman River, which has its source in the Tasman and Hooker Glaciers, close to Aoraki / Mount Cook. Good views of the mountain, 70 kilometres to the north can be had from the southern shore of the lake.
caption: Lake Pukaki (bottom centre) and its neighbouring lakes are separated from the West Coast by the Southern Alps.
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