Las Orquídeas National Natural Park (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

: ''Parque Nacional Natural Las Orquídeas'' or ''PNN Las Orquídeas'') 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 ...

in the Cordillera Occidental,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. Established in 1974, the park encompasses on the western slopes of Colombia's Cordillera Occidental. The park covers a large elevational range (300–3,450 m). The climate is generally humid with an annual rainfall of 3,000-4,000 mm, dropping to 2,500 mm at highest elevations, and ranges from tropical lowland to alpine. The range in elevation and climate creates a diversity of plant communities, including lowland rainforest (ca. 300–1,000 m), premontane forest (ca. 1,000–2,000 m),

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

(ca. 2,000–3,200 m), and high-elevation

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

grassland (ca. 3,200–3,450 m).Flora Of Las Orquídeas National Park
New York Botanical Garden. Accessed 4 February 2023.

References

{{authority control National parks of Colombia Nature reserves in Colombia Protected areas established in 1974 1974 establishments in Colombia Northwestern Andean montane forests Chocó–Darién moist forests