"On the last day of Creation, God wanted to crown His own work, and it was then that, out of tears, stars and breath, he made the Kornats" - wrote George Bernard Shaw. According to legend, when finished with creating the world, God threw a bunch of white rocks he had left, turned around and decided he didn´t need to fix anything.
Due to extraordinary and beautiful sceneries, interesting geomorphology, intensive indentedness of the coast and especially the rich biocenosis of the marital ecosystem, the majority of the Kornat aquatorium was made national park.
Taking up a surface of about 220 square meters, "Kornati" National Park includes 89 islands, smaller islands and cliffs, while the coastal part takes up only a very small percentage of the surface. The largest islands are Kornat and Žut. The Kornat archipelago is bordered by the island of Mala Balabra in the north, Južni Opuh in the south, Vela Alba in the west and Samograd in the east. It consists of four island groups that can be divided into two groups: the Upper Kornats which include the Sitski and Žutski island groups the Lower Kornats which include the Kornat and PuÄinski or PiÅ¡kerski island groups.
The contrast between the bare and seemingly half-desert and inhospitable land on one side and the biologically and geomorphologically very diverse and abundant submarine world, is the main quality and charm of the area. The reasons and causes of such a contrast lie in a phenomenon called "Karst", which is, without a doubt, one of the most valuable natural resources in Croatia in general, and on a global level, too. This diversity, along with the reason why at this very area one may find almost all Karst forms, such as caves, pits, limestone cracks, lies within the very locus typicus of the Karst of the Croatian Dinaridi and carbonate areas (limestone). Most of the outer islands facing the open sea are formed in the shape of the famous Kornat "crowns", or are inclines and cliffs in the PuÄinski or PiÅ¡kerski island group. The most beautiful and famous are the crowns of the islands of PiÅ¡kera and Rasip, the surfaces of which, over 80 meters high, at places slope into the sea.
The marital ecosystem draws the attention of numerous navigation experts, divers, mountain climbers and many other nature-lovers, which is certainly not strange considering the fact that the diversity of the coastal and marital flora and fauna have been studied for 200 years and is still not entirely explored. The estimated number of plant species existing on the area of the Kornats is 700 - 800. The larger islands are overgrown with grazing-land types of vegetation, a type extremely inabundant in plant species as the forests have for a long time been syste matically burned in order to make room for grazing lands, essentially important for the life of the islanders.
Little is known of the coastal fauna of the Kornat area and the very fact that none of these groups has been systematically explored is the reason for this great enigma. Lately, however, several projects for studying and exploring the island fauna have been started (owls, seagulls, cormorants, amphibians, reptiles, etc.).
The marital, i.e. benthos flora amounts up to 350 species. The most numerous are red marine algae (Rhodophyta), followed in number by species from the groups of brown and green algae. Out of a total of 36% benthos algae in the Kornat area, 13 have so far been determined to be Adriatic endemics. The richest and most diverse flora in the Kornat islands is in the special protected zone of the submarine area around the small island of Purar.
Not only the beauty of the landscape and extraordinary scenery of the small islands and cliffs, but also the mysteries of the still wild and unexplored nature invite all who are 050interested to experience and become a part of the diversity of the Kornat archipelago and unite with the Divine game of creating the Kornats.
