The Kornati

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...

(; it, Isole Incoronate) of

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

, also known as the Stomorski islands, is located in the northern part of

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see #Name, names in other languages) is one of the four historical region, historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of ...

, south from

Zadar Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serv ...

and west from

Šibenik Šibenik () is a historic city in Croatia, located in central Dalmatia, where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea. Šibenik is a political, educational, transport, industrial and tourist center of Šibenik-Knin County, and is also the ...

, in the

Šibenik-Knin County Šibenik-Knin County (; hr, Šibensko-kninska županija ) is a county in southern Croatia, located in the north-central part of Dalmatia. The biggest city in the county is Šibenik, which also serves as county seat. Other notable towns in the co ...

. With length and 89

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s, some large, some small, in a sea area of about , the Kornati are the densest archipelago in the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

. From northwest to southeast (from the island of Balabra to Samograd), and from northeast to southwest (from Gangarol to Mana) they stretch for . The name of the archipelago is the plural form of the name of the largest island, called

Kornat Kornat (pronounced ) is an island in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea, in central Dalmatia. With an area of 32.44 km2 it is the 16th largest island in Croatia and the largest island in the eponymous Kornati islands archipelago. It is pa ...

Settlement

There are no permanent settlements in Kornati. Simple houses in well-protected coves such as Vrulje, Kravjačica, Lavsa and others are used by mainland landowners as temporary shelters. Most of the land owners are from the island of

Murter Murter (; it, Mortero; la, Colentum) is an island in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea. Population The main settlements on the island are Murter, located on the north-western part of the island, and the southern part of Tisno. Other sett ...

and

Dugi Otok Dugi Otok (; Croatian for "Long Island", it, Isola Lunga) is the seventh largest island in the Adriatic Sea, part of Croatia. It is located off the Dalmatian coast, west of Zadar. It is the largest and westernmost of the Zadarian Islands, and d ...

Climate

The average monthly temperature for January is , in July it is ; the average sea temperature in winter is and in summer .

Geography

Geographically the Kornati islands can be divided into two main groups - the ''Gornji Kornati'' or Upper Kornati, closer to the mainland, and the ''Donji Kornati'' or Lower Kornati, which are mostly facing the open sea in the southwest. The islands known as Gornji Kornati include the northernmost island of

Sit Sit commonly refers to sitting. Sit, SIT or Sitting may also refer to: Places * Sit (island), Croatia * Sit, Bashagard, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran * Sit, Gafr and Parmon, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran * Sit, Minab, a villa ...

and the surrounding islets, divided by a channel from

Žut Žut () is an uninhabited island in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea, in central Dalmatia. With an area of it is the 28th largest island in Croatia and the second largest island in the Kornati archipelago, after Kornat. Although most of the ...

and its surrounding islets to the south. Žut is the largest and most indented of these islands.

National park

In 1980, the eighty-nine southernmost of the 140-odd islands, islets and reefs of the Kornati archipelago were declared 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 ...

, Nacionalni Park Kornati, protecting the islands and their marine surroundings. The area covered by the National Park mostly coincides with the Donji Kornati, which includes the island of

and the surrounding islets, separated with a channel from the island of Piškera and the surrounding islets. The national park includes 109 islands, of which 76 are less than 1 hectare in size. Of the total land surface area of Kornati (62 km²), 85% is stony, and only 5% has been cultivated.Naklada Naprijed (1999), ''The Croatian Adriatic Tourist Guide'', pg. 211-212, Zagreb, The most important places on the Kornati islands are: the shallow channel Mala Proversa, the oval-shaped Taljurič island, Špinuta Bay, Stivina Bay, the fourth largest island Levrnaka, the second largest karst rock-area Tarac, Svršata Vela island, Mana island, Piškera island, Panitula Vela island, the picturesque Lavsa Bay, the resort island Ravni Žakan, Smokvica Vela island, the Opat peninsula, Samograd island, the Purara reserve for marine life, Vrgada and Gangarol islands. The names of the islands Babina Guzica and Kurba Vela, which in Croatian refer to

buttocks The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the exterior anatomy of most mammals, located on the posterior of the pelvic region. In humans, the buttocks are located between the lower back and the perineum. They are composed ...

and

prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...

, offer an opportunity to explain the many vulgar names officially given to many places in the Kornati archipelago. When Austrian surveyors came to record the archipelago at the end of the 19th century, their local guides mocked them by making up vulgar names for the various locations.

, the biggest of the islands with a total area of , comprises two-thirds of the park's land area. Although the island is long, it is no wider than . The park is managed from the town of Murter, on the island of Murter, which is connected to the mainland by a drawbridge in the town of Tisno.

Geology

Most of the terrain in the Kornati islands is karst-limestone which, in the distant geological past, arose from sediment from the sea. In the stone on the islands there are numerous

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

of crustaceans and fish. In the area there examples of all the typical forms of karst: bizarre shapes formed by the atmosphere, unexplored caves, areas of flat rock and, above all, cliffs. Karst rock is porous, rapidly draining and dry, and so therefore are the Kornati islands. Numerous cisterns supply water for people and animals. Human presence on the Kornati islands appear to extend back to the

Neolithic Age The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

, and the remains of Illyrian settlements were found on the island of Kornat. The presence of wealthy Romans is attested by the mosaic floors of

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

s, and Kornat island has a small tower, ''Toreta'', that was probably built in the 6th century AD. The island of Piškera was also inhabited during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and served as a storage point for fish. Archeological sites in Stražišče and Tarac, and on Levrnaka and Lavsa provide evidence that during the Roman era life on Kornati was very active. There are many buildings and it is known that there were also stone quarries. During the long period of Venetian occupation, the islands were used for resupplying the Venetian fleet. Deforestation and subsequent erosion, and

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature res ...

by sheep and goats, for whose benefit the scrub was periodically burnt over, impoverished the fauna and depopulated the islands, which were purchased by citizens of Murter during the late 19th century.

Fauna

Apart from sea-gulls, which are the most numerous animals, there are some lizards and ring-snakes, and 69 varieties of

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

, some amphibians and rodents. The local ichthyological fauna is also sparse. As regards marine life, the Kornati islands are typical of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, but, due to the underwater relief, streams and special characteristics of the sea in this labyrinth, there are also some peculiarities:

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

and

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

. At one time the sea was the richest in the Adriatic for sponge hunters. The rare mollusc ''Pinna nobilis'' lives in the Kornati and is protected by law. Not only the land but also the sea is within the protection of the National Park. Fishing is extremely limited in order to allow the regeneration of fish shoals that had been severely over-fished. According to tradition, the Mediterranean

monk seal Monk seals are earless seals of the tribe Monachini. They are the only earless seals found in tropical climates. The two genera of monk seals, ''Monachus'' and ''Neomonachus'', comprise three species: the Mediterranean monk seal, ''Monachus mona ...

(''Monachus albiventur'') once lived among these islands. The name of the southernmost point on Vela Kurka (Mendo) is connected with this almost extinct species.

Flora

Vegetation on the islands is very sparse

maquis Maquis may refer to: Resistance groups * Maquis (World War II), predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance * Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fought against Francoist Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War * The network ...

. There have been 200 known varieties of Mediterranean plants, but they have degenerated. The most common plant is a tough variety of grass, but there are many scented and medicinal herbs:

sage Sage or SAGE may refer to: Plants * ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb ** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family ** ''Salvia'', a large ...

, feather grass and

Xeranthemum ''Xeranthemum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to Southern Europe. It has silvery flower heads with purplish tubular flowers. Species Species include: # ''Xeranthemum annuum ''Xeranthemum annuum'' is a flowe ...

, giving a fragrant spring, and during the year providing the best forage for bees. Olive trees account for about 80% of the land under cultivation, followed by vineyards, figs, orchards and vegetable gardens. It is thought that the Kornati islands were once covered with forests of Mediterranean holm oaks, ''Quercus ilex'', but as open fires demanded a great deal of wood, the forests were slowly destroyed; the sole remnant is round the bay of

Telašćica Telašćica () is a bay in the southeastern part of the island of Dugi Otok, Croatia, in the Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost ar ...

.''DK Eyewitness Travel: Croatia''.

References

External links

Kornati National Park

Kornati at heartofdalmatia.com
{{authority control National parks of Croatia Islands of Croatia Islands of the Adriatic Sea Landforms of Šibenik-Knin County Protected areas of Šibenik-Knin County