Doñana National Park
Andalusia, Spain · built 1969
Doñana National Park or Parque Nacional y Natural de Doñana is a natural reserve in Andalusia, southern Spain, in the provinces of Huelva (most of its territory within the municipality of Almonte), Cádiz and Seville. It covers 543 km2 (209.65 mi2), of which 135 km2 (52.12 mi2) are a protected area. It is named after Doña Ana de Silva y Mendoza, wife of the 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia. The park is an area of marshes, shallow streams, and sand dunes in Las Marismas, the delta where the Guadalquivir flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It was established as a nature reserve in 1969 when the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) joined with the Spanish government and purchased a section of marshes to protect it. The eco-system has been under constant threat by the draining of the marshes, the use of river water to boost agricultural production by irrigating land along the coast, water pollution by upriver mining, and the expansion of tourist facilities. Doñana National Park has a biodiversity that is unique in Europe, although there are some similarities to the Parc Naturel Régional de Camargue of the Camargue river delta in France, with which Doñana Park is twinned. The park features a great variety of ecosystems and shelters wildlife, including thousands of European and African migratory birds, fallow deer, Spanish red deer, wild boars, European badgers, Egyptian mongooses, and endangered species s
Park data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).