Lake Pampulha, Artificial reservoir in Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Lake Pampulha is an artificial reservoir in the Pampulha region of northern Belo Horizonte, covering 2.6 square kilometres with a mean depth of 5.1 metres and a maximum of 16 metres. It is fed by eight small streams, the largest being the Sarandi and the Ressaca, and holds 14 million cubic metres of water. Its shoreline carries the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Art Museum, the Casa do Baile and the Iate Tênis Clube, all designed by Oscar Niemeyer from 1941.

The body of water was created in the early 1940s on the initiative of then-mayor Juscelino Kubitschek to secure the water supply for the growing city. The entire project included not only the dam but also a series of leisure and cultural buildings along the shore.

The lake takes its name from the Pampulha stream, dammed from 1936 under mayor Otacílio Negrão de Lima and completed in 1943. In 1941 Juscelino Kubitschek commissioned Oscar Niemeyer to design the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Art Museum, the Casa do Baile and the Iate Tênis Clube on its shores. The complex, with Burle Marx gardens, Portinari paintings and sculptures by Ceschiatti, Zamoiski and José Pedrosa, became a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2016.

The lake lies in the Pampulha administrative region of northern Belo Horizonte, fed by eight small streams, the largest being the Sarandi and Ressaca. Cycling and walking tracks run along the shore, and the Mirante Bandeirantes, opened in 2006 in front of Casa Kubitschek, has life-size bronze sculptures of Juscelino Kubitschek, Oscar Niemeyer, Cândido Portinari and Burle Marx. Swimming is not advised: cyanobacterial blooms are frequent, and since December 2025 the water meets CONAMA Class 3, which allows navigation and secondary contact only.

In February 2020 researchers discovered a previously unknown amoebic virus in the water called Yaravirus, composed almost entirely of novel genes. This finding shows how much unknown microbiology lies dormant even in urban waters.