Photos of lake Urmia before revolution

” Together, the “water city”, what Urmia city is: a city on the waters of the eponymous lake. The name could also derive from the combination of the Assyrian Aramaic words Ur and Mia , “City of Water” referring to the city nearby. Locally, the lake is referred to in Persian as Daryâče-ye Orumiye , in Azerbaijani as Urmu gölü . The traditional Armenian name is Kaputan tsov , literally “blue sea”. Residents of Shahi Island refer to the lake in Azerbaijani as Daryā .Its Old Persian name was Chichast, meaning “glittering”, a reference to the glittering mineral particles suspended in the water of the lake and found along its shores. The Greeks knew it was Spauta, and in medieval times it came to be known as Kabuda (Kabodan) in Armenian geography, from the word for “azure” in Persian, or kapuyt in Armenian.