Geographical location and general information
Location scheme of
Belovezhskaya Pushcha
Belovezhskaya Pushcha is located in the southwest of the Republic of Belarus within the borders of the regions Grodno and Brest.
This forest is one of the largest in the lowlands of Middle Europe. The maximum extent of the forest from west to east is 55 km, and from north to south it covers 51 km. Until recently the National Park covered an area of 87.6 thousand ha of both afforested (77.8 thousand ha or 88.8 %) and open lands (9.8 thousand ha or 11.2 %). Of the open lands 900 ha (1 %) are ploughed fields, 700 ha (0.7 %) are hayfields, 900 ha (1 %) is open water and 3800 ha (4.3 %) covers bogs and wetlands. On January 1, 1999, the National Park was enlarged considerably to 101603 ha. A great number of ecologically unique and valuable territories adjacent to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, such as the bog area Dikoe and the Shereshevskoe forestry and hunting department were integrated into the National Park. Currently the area of the National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" covers more than 150000 ha.
The border of Poland and Belarus crosses Belovezhskaya Pushcha and divides its territory in two parts with an approximately equal surface. The forests of Belovezhskaya Pushcha mainly make up an integer area of woods, with only limited surfaces of open land within the forest and a modest number of settlements edging to Pushcha. The spatial structure within the periphery of the forest has rather simple configuration. The outer perimeter of the entire forest has a length of about 400 km, while the geographical latitudes of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha are 23°31' - 24°21' West and 52°29' - 52°57 North. The watershed between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea runs in the immediate vicinity of the border of Belovezhskaya Pushcha (Geltman & Romanovskii, 1971).
The Administrative Centre of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park is located in the settlement Kamenyuki. The village is situated 20 km from the District center Kamenetz and 60 km north of the Regional center of Brest.
A specific natural characteristic of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Forest is the extensive occurrence of stands of virgin (or "old growth") forest. These primeval forest patches serve as "refugia" of specific and critical species of flora and fauna which have been extirpated in less natural forests or former forests. The average age of the forests of Belovezhskaya Pushcha is over one hundred years, while several patches are aged 200 - 250 years old. Many gigantic trees have been registered. These include 600-year old Oaks, 350-year old Ashes and Pines and 250-year old Spruces, which are still vitally growing kings.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha is located at the boundary of two geo-botanic zones, one being the area of Eurasian Coniferous Forest and the other is the home of European Deciduous Forest. As such Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a so-called "node of concentration" of biodiversity, which by far exceeds all neighboring lowland territories of the European continent in numbers of plants and animals that grow and dwell within their territories. Belovezhskaya Pushcha represents all main components of forest flora and fauna and all main types of forest associations, which can naturally cover and inhabit this geographical region. This can be contributed to the availability of an extensive range of varying environmental conditions, such as variation in soil, type and quality of water, natural relief, impact of different kind of grazing mammals.
* Based on information from the article by Heorhi Kazulka & Vasiliy Zhukov "The State National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" is the oldest Natural Reserve in Europe”, published in the book "Belovezhskaya Pushcha at the Turn of the Third Millennium. Materials of the Scientific and Practical Conference dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of the Formation of the State Reserve "Belovezhskaya Pushcha". - Minsk, 1999. - pp. 16 - 33. (In Russian)
(With some modern data added.)
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