The town of Bala, which was once an important centre for the North Wales woollen trade, is located on the north-eastern end of the lake.

[4] In his 1804 translation of Gerald's work, Sir Richard Colt Hoare states that the lake was also referred to as Pymplwy meer deriving from "pum plwyf" (five parishes).

[9][10] In 2023, the Eryri National Park Authority voted to use an all-Welsh list of standardised names for its lakes, thus favouring Llyn Tegid in English-language usage.

It also contains the gwyniad, a fish unique to the locality and listed as critically endangered by the IUCN due to the introduction of the invasive and non native ruffe;[12] and the very rare mollusc Myxas glutinosa (the glutinous snail).

However this was not confirmed by the detailed limnological work undertaken from the 1990s, to understand and manage the occurrence of algal blooms on the lake.

Investigation by the Environment Agency, in partnership with the water industry, the farming community and others, has put in place a plan for reducing pollution inputs to the lake.

The lake forms part of the River Dee regulation system and the level at its outflow is automatically controlled.

Sluices designed and built by Thomas Telford and William Jessop were installed to ensure that the newly constructed Ellesmere Canal had a constant and sufficient supply of water.

The lake remains popular; it has two sailing clubs, and a number of companies provide kayaks, yachts and various other types of boats for hire.

Bowen's report was soon followed by another sighting in 1979, when a fisherman visiting the lake also described seeing a large hump-backed beast at the water's surface.

One Japanese crew spent three days investigating and filming the lake using specialist diving equipment and a submarine.

Supporters for the potential existence of an afanc creature suggest that both the lake's size (40 metres deep and almost 6 km long) and the abundance of potential prey within it (pike, perch, brown trout and eels) would be able to support a single large predator or even a breeding population.