World Natural Heritage – Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians

€100 gold collector coin

The primeval beech forests of the Carpathians are a cross-border habitat included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. They comprise ten separate sites: four in Slovakia and six in Ukraine. Those in Slovakia are the forest of Vihorlat, located in the Vihorlat Protected Landscape Area, and the forests of Havešová, Rožok, and Stužica, in the Poloniny National Park. The Carpathian primeval beech forests are a chain of enclaves of undisturbed forests and primeval forests constituting a beech gene bank of global importance. Some specimens have exceptionally thick trunks and the tallest stand at around 58 metres, a world record for beech trees. Their entry in the UNESCO World Heritage List was approved on 28 June 2007 by the World Heritage Committee. In 2011 five other sites in Germany were included in the entry, which was then named the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany.