Nízke Tatry

Low Tatras National Park was established in 1978 in central Slovakia and protects some 728 km², which places it among the largest in the country. The range extends some eighty kilometres from east to west and culminates in Ďumbier, at 2,043 metres, and in Chopok.

Unlike the High Tatras, of alpine relief and bare rock, the Low Tatras have more rounded forms and a far more continuous forest cover, with beech and fir woods climbing up to the dwarf pine scrub of the summits. That continuity makes them a key territory for the large Carpathian carnivores, with one of the most important brown bear populations in central Europe.

Its northern sector holds one of the country's most remarkable karst systems: the Demänovská valley, with a cave network several kilometres long that includes the highly decorated Cave of Liberty and the Demänovská Ice Cave, with permanent ice formations. Ski resorts operate on the slopes of Chopok, and their expansion inside the park is its main management conflict, along with forest damage from windstorms and from the bark beetle.