Ojców National Park is a national park in Kraków County

Kraków County

Kraków County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat is the city of Kraków, although the city is...

, Lesser Poland Voivodeship

Lesser Poland Voivodeship

Małopolska Voivodeship , or Lesser Poland Voivodeship, is a voivodeship, in southern Poland...

 in southern Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, established in 1956. It takes its name from the village of Ojców

Ojców

Ojców is a village in Gmina Skała, in Kraków County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is one of the sights of the Eagle Nests Trail , as there are the ruins of a gothic castle near the village. The village is where the authorities of the Ojców National Park have their headquarters...

, where it also has its headquarters.

It is Poland's smallest national park, with an original area of 14.4 square kilometres (5.6 sq mi), since expanded to 21.46 km² (8.3 sq mi). Of this area, 15.28 km² (5.9 sq mi) is forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

ed and 2.51 km² (0.969116418067263 sq mi) is strictly protected. The park is approximately 16 kilometres (10 mi) north of Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

, in the Jurassic Kraków-Częstochowa Upland.

Geography

Karst topography

Karst topography

Karst topography is a geologic formation shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite, but has also been documented for weathering resistant rocks like quartzite given the right conditions.Due to subterranean drainage, there...

 of soluble bedrock

Bedrock

In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...

 characterizes the park, which in addition to two river valleys (the Prądnik and Saspówka

Sąspówka

Sąspówka is a river of Poland....

) contains numerous limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 cliff

Cliff

In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...

s, ravine

Ravine

A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...

s, and over 400 cave

Cave

A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...

s. The largest of these, Łokietek's Cave (said to have sheltered King Władysław I Łokietek, for whom it was named), is 320 metres (1,049.9 ft) deep. The area is also noted for its rock formation

Rock formation

This is a list of rock formations that include isolated, scenic, or spectacular surface rock outcrops. These formations are usually the result of weathering and erosion sculpting the existing rock...

s, the most famous being Hercules' Club

Hercules' Club

Hercules' Club may refer to:*Hercules' Club , a Roman and Migration era artefact type.Plants*Aralia spinosa...

, a 25 metres (82 ft)-high limestone column.

Ojcowski Park is very biodiverse

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

; over 5500 species reside in the park. These include 4600 species of insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s (including 1700 of beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

s and 1075 of butterflies

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

) and 135 of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s. Mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s include the beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

, badger

Badger

Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are nine species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...

, ermine

Ermine

Ermine has several uses:* A common name for the stoat * The white fur and black tail end of this animal, which is historically worn by and associated with royalty and high officials...

, and 15 species of bat

Bat

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...

s, many of which hibernate

Hibernation

Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...

 in the park's caves during the winter.

Human habitation and culture

The earliest settlement in the area dates to the Paleolithic

Paleolithic

The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...

, approximately 120,000 years ago. The Ojców

Ojców

Ojców is a village in Gmina Skała, in Kraków County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It is one of the sights of the Eagle Nests Trail , as there are the ruins of a gothic castle near the village. The village is where the authorities of the Ojców National Park have their headquarters...

 region is rich in flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

, which attracted early human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

s.

The park contains numerous castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s, including a ruined Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 castle at Ojców and a better-preserved Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 castle at Pieskowa Skała, both of which were part of a late-medieval system of defenses in southwestern Poland, known as the Trail of the Eagles' Nests constructed by the order of King of Poland, Kazimierz the Great.

There are two museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

s in the park, the Professor Władyslaw Szafer Museum (named for the first person to advocate the creation of a national park in the Ojców), and a branch of the Kraków-based National Art Collection

Wawel Castle

The Gothic Wawel Castle in Kraków in Poland was built at the behest of Casimir III the Great and consists of a number of structures situated around the central courtyard. In the 14th century it was rebuilt by Jogaila and Jadwiga of Poland. Their reign saw the addition of the tower called the Hen's...

, located in the Pieskowa Skała castle.