Woliński

Wolin National Park was created in 1960 at the north-western tip of Poland, on the island of Wolin, next to the German border and at the outlet of the Oder into the Baltic. It was one of the first Polish national parks and protects a stretch of coast that breaks with the usual image of the Polish Baltic shore, mostly formed by beaches and low dunes.

Here, by contrast, the glacial moraine reaches the sea and the waves have cut it into cliffs more than 90 metres high, the tallest on the Polish coast, in constant retreat through erosion. Inland the park includes beech and oak woodland, inland lakes of glacial origin and a sector of the Oder delta, a labyrinth of branches, channels and river islands of great value for waterbirds.

The white-tailed eagle, which breeds in the park, is its symbol and appears on its emblem; the island and the delta also host waterbird colonies and are a migration staging point. For decades the park has kept an enclosure for breeding European bison in semi-captivity, within a programme that has contributed to the species' recovery in Poland, and which also includes other native animals. Wolin has a notable historical dimension too: the island was an important Slavic and Viking trading centre in the early Middle Ages, and that past is recreated in a settlement beside the park.