![Bia?owie?a National Park emblem [4.75 kB]](http://www.polandguangzhou.com/pl/img/295.gif) | | Bia?owie?a National Park emblem | ![Bia?owie?a National Park [52.92 kB]](http://www.polandguangzhou.com/pl/img/296.jpeg) | | Bia?owie?a National Park | ![Bisons in Bia?owie?a National Park [32.21 kB]](http://www.polandguangzhou.com/pl/img/297.jpeg) | | Bisons in Bia?owie?a National Park |
Some 200 km north-east of Warsaw, you'll find Europe's largest natural forest, the Puszcza Bialowieska (Białowieża Forest - 150,000 ha, of which 65,000 belong to Poland, and the rest to Belarus), the last patch of the primaeval forest that once extended across the European lowlands. The Białowieża National Park (Poland's oldest, established in 1932) has been inscribed on the list of World Biosphere Reserves and the UNESCO World Heritage List. The statistics are impressive: the Bialowieza National Park is home to 21 species of trees (26 in the entire forest), 56 species of bushes, and some 5,000 species of other plants, often endemic, including over 3,000 fungi (almost 430 cap mushrooms), 277 lichens, and almost 200 mosses. As many as 11,559 species of animals have been counted so far (including 9,284 species of insects). The most famous denizens are the free-ranging European bison, but there are many others: wolves, lynxes, elks, wild boar, otters and ermines. The forest is also the habitat of wildfowl, its black storks, cranes, capercaillies, black grouse, snowy owls and eagle owls - a great attraction not only for bird-watchers. |