Story
The story of Curonian Spit National Park
You are on a narrow peninsula made of sand carried by sea currents, with the Curonian Lagoon on one side and the Baltic Sea on the other. Curonian Spit National Park was set up in 1991 to protect this landscape, and in 2000 the Curonian Spit was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The park covers 264.74 square kilometres, but less than half of that is land; the rest is lagoon and sea.
Wind keeps reshaping the dunes, and large areas were planted with forest to hold the sand back; near the sea, the old trees grow bent by the constant wind. The sand has also buried history: between 1675 and 1854, four villages of Nagliai disappeared under it. Today the Nagliai reserve protects the Grey or Dead Dunes, where only scientific observation is allowed.
Look up in spring and autumn: a migration route runs along the spit, and about 15 million birds fly over it.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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10 more stories from Curonian Spit (Nida, Juodkrantė) in the app
More highlights in Curonian Spit (Nida, Juodkrantė)
- Grey DunesDunes in the Nagliai nature reserve on the Curonian Spit between Pervalka and Juodkrantė, often called the Dead Dunes; named after the colour of their vegetation.
- Evangelical Lutheran Church in JuodkrantėLutheran church in the south of Juodkrantė on the shore of the Curonian Lagoon; it is also used by the Catholic parish.
- Nida LighthouseNida Lighthouse is located in Nida, on the Curonian Spit in between the Curonian Lagoon (to the east) and the Baltic Sea (to the west).
- Parnidis DuneThe Parnidis Dune is a drifting (semi-permanent) coastal sand dune on the Curonian Spit, southeast of Nida, Lithuania, near the Lithuania-Russia border of the spit.
- Hill of WitchesThe Hill of Witches is an outdoor sculpture gallery near Juodkrantė, Lithuania. It is located on a forested sand dune about 0.5 kilometer west of the Curonian Lagoon, on the Lithuanian Seaside Cycle Route.
- Juodkrantė civil cemeteryCemetery of about 0.8 ha in the north of Juodkrantė, at the corner of Miško and L. Rėzos streets.