Poland's oldest landscape park, protecting a distinctive post-glacial landscape of moraine hills, kettle lakes, and boulder fields.
Suwalski Landscape Park
Suwalski Landscape Park (Suwalski Park Krajobrazowy, SPK) is the oldest protected landscape park in Poland, established in 1976 in the northern part of Podlaskie Voivodeship. It lies within the East Suwałki Lakeland (Pojezierze Wschodniosuwalskie), a region shaped by Pleistocene glaciation that left behind an unusually rich post-glacial landscape of moraine hills, kames, river valleys, kettle lakes, peat bogs, and extensive boulder fields.
The park is best known for Lake Hańcza, the deepest lake in Poland and in the entire Central European Plain, as well as for striking boulder-strewn reserves such as Głazowisko Bachanowo and Głazowisko Łopuchowskie, where thousands of ice-transported erratic boulders have been preserved in their natural setting. Together with surrounding morainic uplands and viewing hills like Góra Cisowa, these features give the park a strong and recognizable identity within Polish nature conservation.
Beyond its geological significance, Suwalski Landscape Park also protects xerothermic grassland patches, mixed spruce and hazel forests, mires along the Czarna Hańcza valley, and a cultural landscape historically shaped by Old Believer communities. Its combination of glacial landforms, lake scenery, biodiversity, and heritage makes it an important region for understanding the northeastern Polish countryside.
