Durmitor National Park World Heritage Site

Description

Durmitor (pronounced [dǔrmitɔr]) is a massif and the name of a national park in North Western Montenegro. It reaches a height of 2,522 m (Bobotov Kuk).

The massif is bordered by Tara River Canyon on the North, Piva River Canyon on the West, and by Komarnica River Canyon on the South. To the East, Durmitor is open to a vast 1,500 m (4,921 ft) high plateau, called Jezerska Površ (Plateau of Lakes). Sinjavina mountain is located to the east of Jezerska Površ plateau.

Durmitor mountain range is for the most part located in Žabljak municipality.

The massive has 48 peaks above 2,000 m (6,562 ft). The highest peaks of Durmitor are:

Durmitor features 18 glacial lakes, scattered over mountain massif and Jezerska Površ plateau. The lakes add significantly to the beauty of the mountain, and have been nicknamed Gorske Oči, or Eyes of the Mountain.

Name Durmitor is probably derived from Balkan Romance (some Romanian/Vlach dialect), and it means "sleeping" (cognate with English dormitory). There are similarly named mountains such as Visitor (visător, "dreaming") and Cipitor (aţipitor, "sleeping") across former Yugoslavia.

The Durmitor National Park, created in 1952, includes the massif of Durmitor, the canyons of Tara, Sušica and Draga rivers and the higher part of the canyon plateau Komarnica, covering the area of 390 km².

It was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1980.

Eighty km long and 1,300 m deep Tara River Canyon, a part of the National Park Durmitor, is second largest in the world, behind Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Durmitor mountain is the centre of Montenegrin mountain tourism. The tourist facilities are concentrated around the town of Žabljak.

During the winter, main activities on Durmitor are skiing and, increasingly, snowboarding. In the summer, the activities shift to hiking, mountaineering and recreational tourism. One of the most prominent attraction of Durmitor mountain are 18 glacial lakes, best known being Crno Lake.