Triglav National Park

Triglav National Park is the only national park in Slovenia that protects the last areas of pristine nature in the Alps. A diverse area of the highest peaks of the Julian Alps, their jagged ridges, vertical cliffs, deeply incised valleys, hard-to-reach gorges, wild waters, forests, blankets of alpine flowers, mountain lawns and scree, high-mountain karst, glacial lakes and the tender splendour of biodiversity.

In 1908, at the time of the national struggle between the Slovenes and the Germans, the Slovenian scientist, naturalist and seismologist Dr Albin Belar proposed that the valley of the Triglav Lakes should be protected. This would create the first protected area in the whole of Europe. Despite the fact that the commission evaluated the proposal positively, the idea was not accepted.

In 1924, members of the Slovenian Mountaineering Society and members of the Slovenian Museum Society (Nature Conservation Section) leased 1,400 hectares of land in the Triglav Lakes Valley, thus enabling the creation of the Alpine Conservation Park in the Triglav Lakes Valley (lease agreement). Later proposals to enlarge the park were interrupted by the Second World War. Efforts to restore the park continued after the Second World War, and in 1961 (53 years after Belar’s initiative) a decree was passed declaring the Triglav Lakes Valley a national park (2,000 ha in size). The park is named after the highest mountain, Triglav (2,864 m), while the lowest point is Tolminska korita (180 m).

The Triglav National Park Act, which increased the size of the park to 83,807 ha, was adopted in 1981. In 2010, the new Triglav National Park Act was adopted and the park was enlarged (to include the settlement of Kneške ravne and its surroundings).

Triglav National Park is one of Europe’s oldest parks. It lies in the north-west of Slovenia, on the border with Italy and close to the border with Austria, in the south-eastern part of the Alpine massif. It overlaps almost completely with the Eastern Julian Alps.