San Alfonso del Mar,Chile--A one kilometre long swimming pool in Chile has set the world record for the world's largest outdoor swimming pool.The man-made salt water lagoon at San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile, was completed late last year and has been drawing large crowds ever since. Situated on the Chilean coast, it provides a spectacular play area of seemingly endless crystal-clear blue water.
The lagoon employs cutting-edge technology that allows it to "harvest, filter and permanently recirculate ocean water", according to biochemist and businessman Fernando Fischmann, who heads Crystal Lagoons Corporation, the company that designed the mammoth pool.
"This advance provides something that until now was not technically possible - the generation of monumental masses of water in a crystalline state to provide a beach life environment and aquatic sports at the top level," he says.
Fischmann says companies are keen to take advantage of the way lagoons form "impressive artificial paradises, even in inhospitable areas".
The San Alfonso pool:
* Is 8 hectares in surface area or the equivalent of 6,000 standard-size 8-metre-long swimming pools.
* It easily dwarfs the next biggest pool - the Orthlieb in Casablanca, Morocco - which measures 150m x 100m.
* The lagoon's water temperature in summer is 26C, nine degrees warmer than the ocean it sits alongside.
* Its waters are transparent to a depth of 35 metres.
* It cost approximately US$1.5 billion to build and about US$4m per year in maintenance.
* The pool fills itself with 250,000 cubic meters of water from the Pacific ("which filters itself")
