Plitvice Lakes National Park

The lakes of Plitvice are built by their own water: calcium carbonate settles out as tufa (travertine), and the barriers it forms hold back lake after lake. That process is why UNESCO inscribed the park on the World Heritage list on 26 October 1979, thirty years after it was proclaimed Croatia’s first national park on 8 April 1949.

The boundaries were enlarged in 1997, and the park now covers just under 116 mi², 90.7% of it in Lika-Senj county and 9.3% in Karlovac county. The lakes that draw the crowds take up just under 1% of that area. The rest is mostly forest and meadow.

Twelve lakes on dolomite, four in a limestone canyon

The system counts 16 named lakes and several smaller unnamed ones, each spilling into the next. The rock beneath them splits them into two groups:

• Upper Lakes, twelve, set on impermeable dolomite: Prošćansko jezero, Ciginovac, Okrugljak, Batinovac, Veliko jezero, Malo jezero, Vir, Galovac, Milino jezero, Gradinsko jezero, Burgeti and Kozjak, the largest of them all.
• Lower Lakes, four, below Kozjak, where the rock changes to limestone and the water drops into a canyon: Milanovac, Gavanovac, Kaluđerovac and Novakovića Brod.

The Lower Lakes end at the Sastavci falls, where the Korana river springs from under the base of the falls. Close by, the Great Waterfall is the largest fall at Plitvice and in Croatia.

Bears, wolves and lynx beyond the boardwalks

The park lists bear, wolf, roe deer, red deer, lynx and wildcat among the wildlife of its forests and meadows. Three walks leave the lakes for the wooded part of the park:

• Čorkova Uvala, a forest trail 13 mi long.
• Plitvica, the second forest trail.
• The Medveđak trails, from the Hladovina car park at Entrance 2: trail no. 1 takes about 2 h 30 and trail no. 2 about 1 h 30.

Three peaks on the Medveđak ridge

• Oštri Medveđak
• Tupi Medveđak (2,848 ft)
• Turčić (2,628 ft)

1.5 million visitors and a timed-ticket system

The 2024 figures show how concentrated the flow is:

• 1,492,994 visitors from about 163 countries, 85% of them from abroad.
• July and August were the busiest months; May and September each came close to 200,000 visitors.
• 61% of visitors started at Entrance 1 and 39% at Entrance 2.

To spread that flow, the park sells tickets by time slot. The ticket covers the electric boat and the panoramic train within the chosen programme, along with visitor insurance. At the end of 2025 the park announced two changes:

• Cameras to count visitors leaving, so that extra slots can be opened or closed as the day goes on.
• Three new solar-powered electric boats, then under construction.

Reaching the two entrances by road or bus

• D429: the road in from Zagreb or Zadar.
• D52: the road in from Otočac, on the A1 motorway.
• Buses running between the interior and the coast stop near both main entrances, which are about 1.9 mi apart.

Sleeping inside the park

• Hotel Jezero stands near Entrance 2. In the colder months most restaurants close, and it is the only accommodation still open.
• Korana and Borje campsites sit on the edge, with buses to the entrance. The park says there is always enough room in the campsites, so a pitch need not be booked.