Parks & Reserves

Bulgaria has a wealth of natural beauties organized into beautiful national parks (3), natural parks (10), reserves (55), maintained reserves (35), natural landmarks (457), and protected localities (175). Possessing a remarkable bio-diversity, all theses places of natural wealth offer wonderful conditions for photo-hunting, scientific-and-cognitive tourism and hobby tourism. Bulgaria’s three national parks are Rila, Pirin, and the Central Balkan with a total area of 193,049 hectares and comprise more than one-third of all protected areas in Bulgaria.

These national parks are public property and belong to the country. They are managed and administered by Directorates, operating under the Ministry of Environment and Waters. The Executive Agency for Environment is responsible for providing methodical guidance to the National Park Directorates for ecological monitoring and on matters of environmental quality. The 10 natural parks in Bulgaria are: Strandja, Vratsa Balkan, the Blue Rocks, the Roussenski Lom, the Shoumen Plateau, Golden Sands, Kobaklak, Srebarna, Rila Monastery, Persina. Two of them, Pirin National Park and Srebarna biosphere reserve are currently included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.