The Varese territory is a region richly endowed with a green landscape and flowing waters.
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It was the glacier's erosive action that caused significant changes in the morphology of our territory's landscape, such as the formation of glacial valleys. The shrinking of the glaciers, started about 10.000 years ago within the morainic amphitheatres and glacial valleys, determined the formation of wide lake basins that were much more extensive than the current ones, and which were fed by water melting from the glaciers. It is not by chance that the lakes are a characteristic of the Varese district: close to the Pre-Alps they amount to at least ten.
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Of similar importance is the network of rivers, ancient water-ways for the pre-alpine populations that made this their home, appropriating the lake lands. The more important rivers such as the Tresa and Ticino also feed the main lakes Ceresio and Verbano.
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Among the myriad of minor rivers and torrents there are those that feed stretches of smaller but strikingly picturesque lakes. One must mention the Margorabbia which runs off into the small lake of Ganna to then form the lake of Ghirla, flowing on into Lake Maggiore.
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There are others, instead, such as the Arno, Tenere and Rile torrents, that end up by disappearing into the porous ground of the higher plain. Finally those, such as the Olona, that were of significant importance as the driving power for the majority of the rising Lombard industries.
