# Kolkheti National Park
- URL: https://explore-georgia.ge/en/places/kolkheti-national-park
- Type: place to visit
- Region: Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti
- Coordinates: 42.110833, 41.696111

Kolkheti National Park lies on the eastern shore of the Black Sea in the Colchian lowland around Poti and takes in the territory of five municipalities, Zugdidi, Khobi, Senaki, Abasha and Lanchkhuti, so that it belongs to both Mingrelia and Guria; it is the core of the Kolkheti protected areas. The park covers 44,980 hectares, of which 29,229 are land and 15,751 the waters of the Black Sea along the Nabada and Churia sections; more than half the land, 15,742 hectares, is wetland. The park lies on the flat coastal plain between the mouths of the Tikori and the Supsa, at 0–10 metres, divided from the sea by a narrow dune ridge 100–200 metres wide and 2–3 metres high; much of the territory is peat bog and marsh, the bogs of Anaklia, Churia, Nabada, Imnati, Maltakva, Grigoleti and Pichori, where the peat exceeds 12 metres in places and was laid down over the last 4,000–6,000 years. The sluggish Pichori, Kukani, Dedabera, Tsiva and other rivers flow through the park, and of its lakes the largest is Paliastomi, a lagoon up to 3 metres deep cut off from the sea by sand dunes and freshened by the Pichori, with Patara Paliastomi, Imnati and Partotskali beside it.

The Colchian marshes are a remnant of the tropical and subtropical ecosystem that spread across Eurasia in the Tertiary. The climate is warm and humid, with 1,500–1,600 millimetres of rain spread evenly through the year, a mean of 4.5 degrees in January and 22 in August. The swamp forests are made up of bearded alder, wingnut, the Imeretian, Chorokhi and Hartwiss oaks, Colchic ivy, cherry laurel and rhododendron; in the bogs grow three species of sphagnum, the round-leaved sundew and the slender sedge, plants found nowhere else in Georgia, and on the dunes sea buckthorn and the sea daffodil. The fauna includes roe deer, wild boar, otter, jackal, the European pond turtle and newts, and in the marine area the bottlenose dolphin, the common dolphin and the harbour porpoise; Paliastomi holds 88 species of fish. The park is a principal staging and wintering ground for migratory birds, 194 species including the Dalmatian pelican, the greater spotted eagle, the black stork, the crane, the great white egret and, rarely, the white-tailed eagle, and the 9-kilometre stretch of the Rioni mouth is one of the two spawning grounds of the Black Sea sturgeons, the other being the Danube.

## History

The Colchian lowland was the heartland of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis, where Milesian Greeks founded the trading posts of Phasis and Gyenos in the sixth and fifth centuries BC; for Greek mythology Colchis is the land of the Golden Fleece and Medea. In the 1920s the Soviet authorities began large-scale drainage of the marshes to develop the economy, which did devastating damage to the wetland ecosystem; in 1935 (by another account 1947) the Kolkheti State Nature Reserve was created to protect the relict flora and fauna of the Colchian lowland, no larger than 500–561 hectares but of great scientific importance.

In 1996 the wetlands of central Kolkheti were granted the status of a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention, and in 1998–1999, with the support of the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility within the Integrated Coastal Management Project, Kolkheti National Park was established on the basis of the reserve and the surrounding marshes. In the early 2000s local and international NGOs, among them Green Alternative, opposed the building of the Kulevi oil terminal; the terminal project was abandoned at the end of 2002, though the park's marine area still conflicts with licences for oil and gas extraction. The park opened to visitors in 2007 and received a thousand people in its first year; from 24 October 2007 the Colchic ecosystem stood on the UNESCO tentative list, and in 2021 the "Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands", the park included, were inscribed on the World Heritage List.

## Visit info

The park has a visitor centre and a hotel; it lies around Poti, which is about 110 kilometres by road from Kutaisi, an hour and a half's drive. Boat tours run on Lake Paliastomi and the Pichori, on routes from 3 to more than 10 kilometres, and the park also offers birdwatching, hiking, horse riding, diving and sport fishing; check booking and prices with the Agency of Protected Areas.

## Tips

The best time for birds is the spring and autumn migration, and in winter the park is a wintering ground for some of them; take binoculars and a telephoto lens on the Pichori boat tour. In summer choose a morning tour, as the midday heat is hard. The park fits into one day with the Poti cathedral and Nokalakevi.

## Safety

The coast is subject to heavy periodic winds, so boat tours depend on the weather. Do not leave the path in the marsh: the peat layers are deep and several kinds of snake live in the park; take insect repellent.

## Sources

- [Kolkheti National Park — Georgian Wikipedia](https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/კოლხეთის_ეროვნული_პარკი)
- [Kolkheti National Park — English Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkheti_National_Park)
- [Kolkheti National Park — Russian Wikipedia](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Колхидский_национальный_парк)
- [Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands — UNESCO World Heritage](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1616/)
- [Kolkheti National Park — Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1444561)

## This page in other languages

- [ქართული](https://explore-georgia.ge/ka/adgilebi/kolkhetis-erovnuli-parki)
- [Русский](https://explore-georgia.ge/ru/mesta/kolkhidskii-nacionalnyi-park)