Europe's biggest man-made lake the size of Edinburgh took 7 years to build and cost £2.2bn

The Great Lake of Alqueva in south-eastern is the largest man-made lake in and it hasn't been around all that long.

The vast expanse of water is 97 sq miles, making it ever so slightly smaller than , which measures 102 sq miles.

Alqueva Lake exists because of the construction of a huge dam at the site, designed to irrigate the dry surroundings.

The dam was finished in 2002, but it wasn't full to capacity until 2010.

However, the dam doesn't just provide a valuable water source for the area. It also generates electricity thanks to the 518.4-megawatt (695,200 hp) power station finished on the site in 2013.

On February 8, 2002, the 96-metre (315 ft) high floodgates of the Alqueva dam were closed and the lake was filled.

However, it wasn't until January 2010, that the lake was filled to the required level. At that point the surface area was 250 km2.

When filled, the shoreline of the Great Lake of Alqueva, which is also known as Grande Lago, is almost 1200 kilometers and the maximum depth is about 100 meters.

One Tripadvisor reviewer from Edinburgh, said of the astonishing feat of engineering: "Nice convenient car park and footpath enables you to stop when driving over the dam to admire the view of the lake.

"You can see both sides of the dam and admire the fantastic feat of engineering.

"The view over the lake is fantastic and if you follow a footpath along the shores of the lake towards Moura for about 15m there is a monument to the buiders of the dam with an interesting explanation."