Happy 16th Birthday to us!
Today the National Park turns 16 years old…here are 16 things you may not know about the Park.
Loch Ard in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
1 – The Park is 1,865 sq km (720 sq miles) and has a boundary length of 350 km (220 miles).
2 – ️50% of Scotland’s population lives within an hour’s drive of the National Park.
3 – There are 21 Munros (mountains above 3,000ft) in the Park and the highest is Ben More at 1,174m.
4 – There are 20 Corbetts (mountains between 2,500ft and 3,000ft).
5 – There are 22 larger lochs, with numerous smaller lochs and lochans, and about 50 rivers and large burns.
6 – 15,168 people live in the National Park (2011 census).
7 – ️There are two Forest Parks – Queen Elizabeth in the Trossachs and Argyll in Cowal.
8 – The National Park contains one of the UK’s largest National Nature Reserves – The Great Trossachs Forest.
9 – ️Ben Lomond National Memorial Park is Scotland’s national memorial to those who have died in conflict.
10 – The stunning Loch Lomond is home to 22 islands and 27 islets.
11 – Loch Lomond is the largest area of freshwater in Britain at 24 miles long! At its deepest, it measures 623 feet, the equivalent of 45 double decker buses.
12 – The National Park has 39 miles of coastline around Loch Long, Loch Goil and the Holy Loch.
13 – For hundreds of years, up until the 19th century, Scottish Gaelic was the language of most of the inhabitants of the Park area.
14 – The Park was the first National Park in Scotland followed by the Cairngorms.
15 – There are four distinctive areas of the National Park: Loch Lomond, Cowal, The Trossachs and Breadalbane.
16 – Our Wild Park 2020 Biodiversity Action Plan sets to deliver five ‘wild challenges’: red squirrel, invasive non-native species, mountain bogs, black grouse and woodland habitat networks.