Aggtelek

Aggtelek National Park was established in 1985 in north-eastern Hungary, in the karst region of Gömör-Torna, beside the Slovak border. It is the first Hungarian national park created specifically to protect abiotic values: landforms and caves. Its history of protection goes back further: in 1978 the karst was declared a protected landscape area and in 1979 a biosphere reserve, six years before the park was created.

The caves of the karst began to form some three million years ago, and more than 1,200 are known across the massif today. The most celebrated is the Baradla, the largest and most spectacular in Hungary, which continues into Slovakia under the name Domica to form a transboundary system. Excavations inside the cave and around it show that it has sheltered human populations for more than seven thousand years, and its exceptional acoustics allow classical concerts to be held inside it.

In 1995 the Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst were inscribed on the World Heritage List as a transboundary natural property between Hungary and Slovakia. On the surface the park also protects karst grassland, oak and hornbeam woodland, dolines and blind valleys, and its fauna includes important bat colonies and a community of organisms adapted to life underground.