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Plitvice Lakes National Park is the oldest national park in Southeast Europe and the
largest national park in Croatia. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful natural sights
in Europe. Due to its natural beauty and significance, this system of 16 interlinked lakes and a
large forest complex around it were set aside as a national park in 1949. In 1979, Plitvice
Lakes National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage register among the first natural
sites worldwide.
The Plitvice Lakes had became a major tourist attraction in the late 19th century. The first
hotel was built there in 1896, and as early as 1893 it already had a conservation committee.
In 1949 the communist government of Yugoslavia nationalized the lakes and made them a national
park. The park soon became one of Yugoslavia's most popular tourist attractions.
The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colours, ranging from azure to green, grey
or blue. The colours change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in
the water and the angle of sunlight. The lakes are divided into the 12 Upper Lakes and the
4 Lower Lakes.
The Plitvice Lakes national park is heavily forested, mainly with beech, spruce, and fir
trees, and features a mixture of Alpine and Mediterranean vegetation. It has a notably
wide variety of plant communities, due to its range of microclimates, differing soils
and varying levels of altitude.
The area is also home to an extremely wide variety of animal and bird species. Rare fauna
such as the European brown bear, wolf, eagle, owl, lynx, wild cat and capercaillie can be
found there, along with many more common species. At least 126 species of birds have been recorded
there, of which 70 have been recorded as breeding there.