National Park Sjeverni Velebit (lit. Northern Velebit) is the youngest national park in Croatia. It was founded in 1999 and started work in September the same year.
It covers 109 km² of the northern section of the Velebit mountain, the largest mountain in Croatia, the whole of which is a nature park, a lesser category of nature conservation. Another national park on Velebit is the Paklenica on its southern side.
The special reservations Hajdučki kukovi and Rožanski kukovi are located in the center of the park. The peak Zavižan (1676 m) is also located within the park, and it carries the meteorological station with the highest altitude in Croatia.
The park reserve is protected and visitors cannot thread thorough except for on designated trails. Only scientific researchers and educational visits are allowed in the protected area. Inside the reserve there are the Visibaba botanical reserve, with a rich founding of the endemic Croatian Sibirrhaea, and the Zavižan-Balinovac-Velika kosa botanical reserve, famous for its outstanding collection of species of the mountain flora. Inside the reserve there is a widely known Velebit Botany Garden, founded by the pharmacology professor Fran Kušan in 1967.
The Park is criss-crossed with numerous mountaineering trails. The most famous and widely known is the Premužić's Trail, named after its constructor, the BSc forestry Ante Premužić who built it in the late 1933. The path runs through the most beautiful and the most interesting parts of the park. From the numerous peaks in the surroundings you can have a magnificent view on the Adriatic Sea and its islands Pag, Rab, Goli Otok, Prvić and Krk, and on the continental side as well. The Park's cultural value is present in a form of numerous ruins of the so-called "summer lodges", which witness of the ages passed and long forgotten, when Velebit was inhabited by the numerous population of shepherds and cattlers. On its coastal banks you can find many ruined houses, lodges and stonewalls which once marked the specific lifestyle of the local population who scattered all around the globe in the days to come, leaving nothing but traces of their presence on this remarkably beautiful and exquisite land.
Шаблон:National parks of Croatia