Labanoras Regional Park, established in 1992, is located 80 kilometers northeast of

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

's capital,

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

. Covering 553.18 km², it is the largest regional park in the country.Labanoro Regioninis Parkas in Lithuania
''

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 territori ...

'' Its administration is in the small town of

Labanoras Labanoras ( �aba'noːras, is a small town within the Labanoras Regional Park in Lithuania. It is situated on and is surrounded by the Labanoras Regional Park, the largest regional park in Lithuania. As a center of the Labanoras Park, the town ...

Nature

The park contains about 70 lakes; about 80% of its land is forested. Its floral

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

is high, and it is home to the densest population of nesting

white stork The white stork (''Ciconia ciconia'') is a large bird in the stork family, Ciconiidae. Its plumage is mainly white, with black on the bird's wings. Adults have long red legs and long pointed red beaks, and measure on average from beak tip to en ...

couples in Europe. It also contains areas with archeological, architectural, ethnographic, and historic value. It is the largest

regional park, distinguished by a variety of landscapes, extremely rich flora and fauna. The largest part of the park is occupied by forests (80%), mostly

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

forests. with abundant wetlands and lakes is characterized by an abundance of protected species. Lakes occupy 14 percent. park areas. Spectacular and White Lakajai, , and other lakes in Molėtai Lake District, 15.8 km long lake. , one of the most beautiful and exotic rivers, was loved not only by

water birds A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystem Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's ...

but also by water tourists. There are 285 lakes in Labanoras Regional Park - the largest of all Lithuanian regional parks. Largest: , White Lakajai, . About 30 streams flow through the park. These are , , , . In addition to these water bodies, the park protects

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

ecosystems, valuable calcareous marshes. A whole complex of high marshes and lakeside low marshes is protected - Kanija raistas and many larger and smaller wetlands. In the Girutiškis Nature Reserve here, the Beržalotas upland swamp shines with the mirrors of the lakes. Pine forests make up 81 percent. of all the forests in the park. Along with abundant lakes, swamps, hilly and undulating terrain, they are very picturesque. The distant surroundings of

Aukštaitija National Park __NOTOC__ Aukštaitija National Park is a national park in north-eastern Lithuania, about 100 km north of Vilnius. Established in 1974, it is the oldest of the five national parks in Lithuania. It was initially named Lithuanian SSR National ...

can be seen from the observation tower of the

Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology The Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology () is a sky observatory and ethnocosmology museum in Kulionys village located about north of Vilnius, Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region ...

. The park is a famous breeding ground for

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

and

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

es.

References

Regional parks of Lithuania {{VilniusCounty-geo-stub