Linnansaari-Nationalpark

The Linnansaari National Park is a national park in the Finnish Savo region. It was founded in 1956 to preserve the nature of the island landscapes of the Finnish Lake District.

The national park covers a 40 km long and 5-10 km wide area on the Haukivesi Lake, part of the Saimaa lake system. The largest part of the National Park belongs to the municipality of Rantasalmi, a smaller part to Savonlinna and Varkaus. In the area there are about 130 islands and numerous smaller rocks with a total area of 38 km ². In Linnansaari national park was endangered Saimaa ringed seals occur. In addition, it houses one of the largest breeding populations of the Osprey in Finland. Furthermore, belong to the rich birdlife of the national park, the rare white-backed woodpecker, herring gulls, black-throated diver, Tree hawks, Common Merganser, Red-breasted Merganser, blackbirds, wrens, Wood Warbler, Greenish Warbler and Common Rosefinch.

The vegetation of the islands is very varied: some it only consists of lichens on barren beach rocks, partly of lush grove forests. Because of swidden building, which was operated until the 1930s in the area, the forests are rather young. They are distinguished by their great variety of tree species in that same grove birch, aspen, linden, gray alder, pine, spruce, rowan trees and Sal - pastures may occur. In 1993 they took in the surroundings of the old Kate from Linnansaari the Schwenden to traditional methods again in order to get the type of landscape of the swidden forest.

On the main island Linnansaari several hiking trails and a lookout point found on the Linnanvuori Rock. In the summer there are boat connections on the island of Porosalmi Rantasalmi and Oravi in Savonlinna. The information center of the National Park, the " nature center Oskari ", is located in the community center of Rantasalmi.