Curonian SpitMade by Ishutina Dianaand Kaminskaya Anastasiya.School №36, 9 “A”

Kaliningrad2011

Some facts about the Curonian Spit Title spit comes from the name of the ancient

tribes of the Cours, who lived here before the colonization of Prussia, the Germans.

Length - 98 km, the width ranges from 400 meters (near the village of Lesnoe) to 3.8 kilometers (near Cape Bulvike, just north of Nida).

The body of spit consists of sand covered with a thin (several centimeters in thickness) of topsoil. The formation of this layer occurred over many decades.

In 2000, the Curonian Spit was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

GeographyThe Curonian Spit

stretches from the Sambian Peninsula on the south to its northern tip next to a narrow strait, across which is the port city of Klaipėda on the mainland of Lithuania. The northern 52 km long stretch of the Curonian Spit peninsula belongs to Lithuania, while the rest is part of the Kaliningradskaya Oblast, Russia.

Russian-Lithuanian border is a 49-km spit (if you count from Zelenogradsk). On the Russian part of the Curonian Spit National Park is the Curonian Spit (status granted in 1987) and villages Lesnoye, Rybachiy and Morskoe. Together they make up rural settlement of the Curonian Spit (founded in 2005) in the Zelenogradsk region. The total population of rural settlements - 1,556 people. Center of the settlement - Rybachiy.The largest settlement in the half of Lithuania - Nida, other villages - Preila, Pervalka, Juodkrante and Smiltynė. On the Lithuanian side is also the National Park of Curonian Spit, founded in 1991.

Geologic historyThe Curonian Spit was formed about 3rd millennium. A glacial moraine served as its foundation; winds and sea currents later contributed enough sand to raise and keep the formation above sea level.

The existence of this narrow shoal is inherently threatened by the natural processes that govern coastal shoreline features. It depends on a dynamic balance between sand transport and deposition. If (hypothetically) the source area to the south-west were cut off, say, by a large port construction with a pier, the Spit would erode and eventually disappear. It is thus a geologically speaking ephemeral coast element. The most likely development, however, is that the shallow bay inside the Spit will eventually fill up with sediment, thus creating new land.

Human historyAccording to Baltic mythology, the Curonian Spit was formed by a giantess, Neringa, who was playing on the seashore.From ca. 800 to 1016, the Spit was the location of Kaup, a major pagan trading centre which has not been excavated yet. The Teutonic Knights occupied the area in the 13th century, building their castles at Memel (1252), Neuhausen (1283), and at Rossitten (1372). The Spit may have been the home of the last living speaker of a now-extinct Baltic language, Old Prussian.

Significant human impacts on the area began in the 16th century. Deforestation of the spit due to overgrazing, timber harvesting, and building of boats for the siege of Kenigsberg in 1757 led to the dunes taking over the spit and burying entire villages. Alarmed by these problems, the Prussian government sponsored large-scale revegetation and reforestation efforts, which started in 1825. Owing to these efforts, much of the spit is now covered with forests. In the 19th century the Curonian Spit was inhabited primarily by Curonians (Kursenieki) with a significant German minority in the south and a Lithuanian minority in the north.

Sights72% of the territory of the spit is covered with forests, in which there are about 600 species of wood, shrub and grass vegetation. The fauna includes 296 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals (elk, deer, wild boar, fox and others).

Curonian Spit is also called avian bridge. It carries an ancient migratory route of birds (150 species) from northern Europe to southern Europe and northern Africa. During the migration over the spit daily pass to a million birds. Nest here 102 species of birds. The Spit has one of the world's first and oldest in Europe Ornithological Station, located in the village Rybachiy. It was founded by the German theologian and amateur bird Johann Tineman on January 1, 1901.

The Dancing Forest - a place where the trees are twisted bizarre way. The reasons for this phenomenon is not finalized.

Thanks for attention!

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