Doñana National park

Through entire Spain, you can find many different national parks, for example, Ordesa and Monte National park, in Aragón and Cabañeros National park, in Castilla la Mancha. Of course, there are more! In the region Andalusia, there are two national parks: The Sierra Nevada and Doñana. In this blog, you can read more about the beautiful Doñana National park which is located 42 minutes from Seville and in which we have done several tailor-made tours with Carlos.

Three provinces

National park Doñana, Parque Nacional de Doñana or also known as Coto de Doñana is a nature reserve that consists of shallow streams, marshes, and sand dunes in Las Marismas (the delta where the Guadalquivir river flows into the Atlantic Ocean). The park is situated in three provinces namely, Huelva, Seville, and Cádiz. Doñana covers approximately 543 km² (210sq mi), including 135 km² (52sq mi) of marshes bought by the WWF, which are one of the most important protected areas in Europe now.

Fauna and Flora

Doñana is definitely the national park with the highest biodiversity in Europe. More than 300 bird species occupy this area, most of them are waterfowl, they love the extensive marshes in the park! During summer many flamingos come to Doñana to nest. Besides birds, there are also many other animals like insects, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals.

The Iberian lynx for example, unfortunately, the most threatened wild cat on Earth. You can only find this mammal in Sierra de Cardeña and Montoro Natural Park and in Doñana. Nearby Doñana, there is a breeding centre, the Acebuche Breeding Centre, where at the beginning of this month, eight cubs were born. The cubs can be watched via a live webcam when clicking the link!

Besides the fauna, the flora in Doñana is also very diverse. The national park has a spectacular landscape, shaped by different ecosystems, this is why there are more than 900 species of flora.

The name Coto de Doñana

As we already told, the park is also known as “Coto de Doñana”. Coto means something like hunting ground. So “hunting ground of Doña Ana”. The area was in the past from Doña Ana de Mendoza, who married the 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, and lived in this area in the 16th century. Only the dukes of Medina Sidonia could hunt in this area.

live webcam: http://icts.ebd.csic.es/cameras