At the southwestern tip of Aetoloakarnania, meeting with the Gulf of Patras and the Ionian Sea, bordered by the rivers Acheloos and Evinos, which shaped it with their deposits at their estuaries, the Messolonghi Lagoon is considered the country’s largest marine lagoon system.
Being an Environmental Park, protected by the Ramsar Convention and included in the Natura 2000 network, it has insuperable scientific, environmental and geomorphological weight.
An ideal place for fish production (eels, sea bass and female mullet, which is used to produce the famous Messolonghi roe, are only some of its fish fauna), an ark of life with almost 300 species of birds and greatly diverse flora, and a place of production of huge quantities of salt – its salt pans are the largest in Greece – this huge wetland area has had a decisive centuries-old effect on the economic and social life of the region.
The lagoon’s special landscape of exceptional beauty is adorned by the ‘pelades’, wooden houses built in the water, the ‘gaites’, shallow waters boats, and the ‘ivaria’, unique natural fish farms.
