Geography of Croatia

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Presentation

Physical chart of Croatia. Click to enlarge the image.

Croatia has an extremely cut out coast, covered of forests, enamelled a multiplicity of islands, well preserved Mediterranean old cities, with the narrow lanes and the stone-built houses as in Italy. It has also vast green coastal pastures, enclosed stone walls. The mountainous regions of Croatia are decorated vast preserved forests, romantic lakes, fast torrents and picturesque villages as in the Alps. One can see the hard karstic reliefs also there, with their deep throats and their canyons. The broad plains and plates of Croatia shelter vast preserved marshy areas which one can still find only at the end is Europe, in Russia or Ukraine.

The three principal Croatian natural units, namely the plains, the mountains and the littoral present, from their fundamental characteristics, of the essential differences. The greatest part is Croatia of the plains, fertile and populated well, which extends to south-west from the large plain from Pannonia. Its natural main features are the oaks centenaries, the forests of the wet plains, the many rivers with the preserved pure sources because and a fauna and a flora extremely varied as well on ground as in water and the air. However, this territory of Pannonia is not always flat, because at the horizons of the plains picturesque slopes of vineyards as well as the timbered scrap-metals take shape regularly, which are drawn up like islands in the “wheat sea” of Pannonia.

Unlike Croatia of the plains and plates, Croatia of the mountains small and is populated little. This is why this environment remained in major part preserved and in a natural state. In its dense forests of fir trees, beeches, and junipers reign with complete freedom the bears, the lynxes, and the wolves. Its limpid rivers abound in otters and trouts. The Croatian solid masses do not have the altitude of the alpine solid masses but white limestone often worked them so that they can nourish the inspiration of the most imaginative sculptor. The karstic phenomena are the elementary cause; the karst is precisely what is most characteristic of Croatia. The wealth of the karstic forms is also observed in the underground world with its many caves, ravines, pits, cracks, basins and other single forms of relief, which one finds seldom elsewhere in Europe. The best proof of the importance of the Croatian karst is than in the vocabulary specialized the term indicating it, not easily translatable in other languages, its Croatian name preserved.

The Croatian coast, the Greek coast, takes into account more a large number of islands; it is also the coast most cut out in the Mediterranean. It 1778 kilometers is long. If one adds the coasts of 1185 islands to it, small islands and rocks its length reaches 5835 kilometers.

National parks and Natural parks

Chart of the national parks and natural of Croatia. Click to enlarge the image.

The jewels of the natural heritage are preserved within the framework of eight national parks (Plitvice, Krka, Kornati, Brijuni, Mljet, Velebit of north, Paklenica and Risnjak), ten natural parks (Kopački laughs, Papuk, Lonsko polje, Medvednica, Žumberak-Samoborsko gorje, Učka, Velebit, Telašćica, Vransko jezero and Biokovo) and two strictly protected nature reserves (the rocks Bijela and Samarska on the solid mass of Bjelolasica and Rožanski and Hajduk kukovi on the Velebit mount).

The National parks form the gravitational part of the Croatian, rich and varied natural heritage. They are priceless places on the level natural, cultural, scientific, educational, esthetic and tourist. Consequently the activities which put in danger nature, fauna and the flora are prohibited there. Among the eight Croatian National park, three are islands of the same name Brijuni, Kornati, and Mljet, three are located in the mountains - Risnjak, Velebit of north, and Paklenica; finally two shelter natural phenomena related to water: Krka and Lakes Plitvice.