Mavrovo National Park (Macedonian: Национален Парк Маврово Nacionalen Park Mavrovo, Albanian: Parku Kombëtar i Mavrovës) is the largest of the four national parks in North Macedonia. It was founded in 1949 and has an area of 731 km². It is located in the northwestern part of North Macedonia, southwest of the city of Gostivar. Originally the national park had an area of 118 km². In 1952 it was expanded, at the same time Lake Mavrovo was created - a 13.7 km² reservoir located at 1233 m above sea level - which supplies the surrounding area with electricity.[1] The village of Mavrovi Anovi, which was flooded by the lake, was rebuilt north of the lake. The highest point in the national park is Korab Peak.
The national park is used by tourists for hiking, cycling and skiing; there are hotels, holiday homes and ski lifts. Hiking trails are only sporadically marked. Worth seeing are the Duf waterfall near Bituše, the village of Galičnik and the Sveti Jovan Bigorski monastery.
Large parts of the national park consist of grassland, as large areas of forest were cleared up until the early 1950s to facilitate the intensive sheep farming of the time. Norway spruce and beech grow in particular at higher altitudes, while various types of oak can be found at lower altitudes. Animal species found in the national park include the western rock vole, the Martino snow vole, the western blind vole, the Balkan mole, several species of shrews and bats, as well as otters, wild cats, lynxes, wolves and brown bears, as well as numerous rare amphibians, reptiles and insects. There were plans for two hydroelectric power plants in the national park that would have threatened the survival of the Balkan lynx. The park is home to the most significant population of the critically endangered lynx species. A campaign by the environmental organization Eko-svest led by Ana Čolović Lešoska resulted in the project's building permit being revoked in 2016.[2][3]
A part of the national park, namely the valley of the river Dlaboka Reka ("Deep River") flowing through the national park, was included in the transnational World Heritage Site "Ancient Beech Forests and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe" in 2021.[4]
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