Loktak Lake

The Story

The phumdis — heterogeneous masses of vegetation, soil, and organic matter at various stages of decomposition — float on Loktak's surface like miniature islands. They move with the wind and the water, some thick enough to walk on, and they give Loktak its otherworldly face.

On these floating islands sits the Keibul Lamjao National Park — the world's only floating national park and the last natural home of the endangered brow-antlered deer, the sangai, Manipur's state animal. A single rare flower, the loktak lotus, also blooms nowhere else.

Covering around 300 square kilometres, the lake is the lifeline of the region: it feeds hydropower, irrigates fields, supplies drinking water, and sustains thousands of fishermen whose stilt-house villages rise straight from its waters.