Samogitia National Park or Žemaitija National Park is a

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. It is situated on the Samogitian Highlands, 45 km from the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. Lakes cover more than 7% of its territory.

Lake Plateliai Lake Plateliai (Samogitian dialect: ''Plateliu ežers'') is the biggest lake in Samogitia and 9th biggest in Lithuania. It is the central attraction in the Žemaitija National Park. It covers about and reaches up to in depth. It has seven island ...

(12.05 km², 47 m depth) is the largest lake. The town of

Plateliai Plateliai ( sgs, Platelē; pl, Płótele) is a town in Samogitia, Lithuania. It is situated on the west bank of Lake Plateliai, the largest lake in Samogitia. The town with the population of about 1,100 people is the center of an elderate in Pl ...

, situated on the shore of the lake, is the seat of the park's administration and a popular tourist destination. The Park has Category II in the classification of the IUCN.Zemaitijos Nacionalinis Parkas in Lithuania
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Protected Planet The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the largest assembly of data on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas, containing more than 260,000 protected areas as of August 2020, with records covering 245 countries and territorie ...

Nature

The hilly

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

of the Samogitian Park was formed by the melting

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

about 12,000 years ago. The resulting hills are relatively high, about 150–190 meters.

Lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s occupies more than 7%. park territories, the largest

Samogitia Samogitia or Žemaitija ( Samogitian: ''Žemaitėjė''; see below for alternative and historical names) is one of the five cultural regions of Lithuania and formerly one of the two core administrative divisions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

Plateliai Lake is concentrated here, in addition to which there are 25 smaller lakes. Forests occupy about 45 percent of the park. all areas. The forested wetlands of Plokštinė and Rukundžiai, the hydrographic complexes of Plateliai Lake, Laumalenka and Šilinė, the valleys of the Gardai

esker An esker, eskar, eschar, or os, sometimes called an ''asar'', ''osar'', or ''serpent kame'', is a long, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North Amer ...

, Babrungas and Mergupis rivers, Paburgė, Siberia, Pakastuva, Užpelkiai, Ertenis and Paparčiai wetlands are especially valuable for science. and Pailgis forests and Juodupis wetlands

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s, rare plants and animals. Rare

Atlantic salmon The Atlantic salmon (''Salmo salar'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. It is the third largest of the Salmonidae, behind Siberian taimen and Pacific Chinook salmon, growing up to a meter in length. Atlantic salmon are ...

and

freshwater whitefish The freshwater whitefish are fishes of the subfamily Coregoninae, which contains whitefishes (both freshwater and anadromous) and ciscoes, and is one of three subfamilies in the salmon family Salmonidae. Apart from the subfamily Coregoninae, the ...

Coregonus albula ''Coregonus albula'', known as the vendace or as the European cisco, is a species of freshwater whitefish in the family Salmonidae. It is found in lakes in northern Europe, especially Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia and Estonia, and in ...

'' and ''

Coregonus lavaretus ''Coregonus lavaretus'' is a species of freshwater whitefish, in the family Salmonidae. It is the type species of its genus ''Coregonus''. There are widely different concepts about the delimitation of the species ''Coregonus lavaretus'' and abou ...

'' breed in Plateliai Lake. Grows to 7.2 m in volume, 2.1 m in diameter and 34 m in height . Next to the park, in the village of , lies the largest stone in Lithuania

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

- Barstyčiai.

Wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

and

lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

es found home here. Nine species of

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

s fly at night.

References

National parks of Lithuania Protected areas established in 1991 1991 establishments in Lithuania Tourist attractions in Telšiai County Samogitia {{TelšiaiCounty-geo-stub

Nature

See also

References