Travel Guide Kozara National Park

Kozara National Park (Nacionalni Park Kozara/Национални Парк Козара) is located in the municipality of Dera/Дера (700 inhabitants, mostly Bosnian), which is part of the municipality of Prijedor. The park's visitor center is 24 km northeast of Prijedor and 56 km northeast of Banja Luka. No bus connection.The site of a major battle in the summer of 1942, this 35-hectare national park was established in 1967 as a memorial park with an imposing monument erected in 1972, which was one of the most visited in socialist Yugoslavia. The smallest of the four national parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it occupies a part of the Kozara massif which rises to 978 m above sea level. Today it is mainly a recreational area with, among other things, hiking and mountain bike trails, hotels, a ski resort and a small hunting area. But the park is rather well preserved. It is made up of plateaus and hills and is covered with forests: beech and fir trees to the north, oak, spruce, white and black pine to the south, as well as hornbeam, downy oak, elm and black ash. Several rivers have their sources here, such as the Mlječanica, Moštanica and Crna Rijeka, which in some places form waterfalls. There are squirrels, foxes, wild cats, martens and ferrets, sometimes wolves and bears, but also eagles, several types of owls, partridges, pigeons, doves, woodpeckers and nightingales. The access to the park is not free: 2 KM/person.