Český les Protected Landscape Area is a Protected Landscape Area in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. It lies in the western part of the Pilsen Region along the border with the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 state of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. It protects the most valuable parts of the he range of the same name, the Český les, which bears the name Oberpfälzerwald Wald in Germany.

CHKO Český les was declared in 2005 as the 25th Protected Landscape Area of the Czech Republic. Most of the area was vacated after the forced expulsion of the predominantly German inhabitants after the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Until the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 it was part of the Western border zone, virtually uninhabited. Due to this development it is today an area little affected by human activities, a mosaic of deep forests, meadows and forests. There are many valuable well-preserved habitats of the beech

European Beech

Fagus sylvatica, the European Beech or Common Beech, is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae.-Natural range:...

 and mixed fir-beech

European Beech

Fagus sylvatica, the European Beech or Common Beech, is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae.-Natural range:...

 forests (though replaced by spruce

Norway Spruce

Norway Spruce is a species of spruce native to Europe. It is also commonly referred to as the European Spruce.- Description :...

 plantations in a large part of the origibnal area), bog spruce

Norway Spruce

Norway Spruce is a species of spruce native to Europe. It is also commonly referred to as the European Spruce.- Description :...

 forests and bog Mountain Pine

Mountain Pine

Pinus mugo, the Mountain Pine or Mugo Pine, is a high-altitude European pine, found in the Pyrenees, Alps, Erzgebirge, Carpathians, northern Apennines and Balkan Peninsula mountains from 1,000 m to 2,200 m, occasionally as low as 200 m in the north of the range in Germany and Poland, and as high...

 forests. Geologically the area is not much varied, with the nutrient deficient rocks of the so called Moldanubicum pluton

Pluton

A pluton in geology is a body of intrusive igneous rock that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, and other igneous bodies...

 of Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...

 to Proterozoic

Proterozoic

The Proterozoic is a geological eon representing a period before the first abundant complex life on Earth. The name Proterozoic comes from the Greek "earlier life"...

 origin (granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

s, gneiss

Gneiss

Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...

, schist

Schist

The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...

s, slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

s). CHKO Český les covers an area of .

There are no permanent settlements in the area, rather a few restored hamlets and many of the meadows and patures are now used for cattle raising. The protected area is divided in two parts separated by the D5 highway connecting the Czech Republic and Germany. The zone close to the highway was not included in the protected area.

Nature Reserves

As of February 2007 there were following Nature Reserves and other smaller protected areas within the CHKO Český les:

Name	Type	Area	Reason for protection
Broumovská bučina	Nature Reserve		herb-rich beech forest
Bučina u Žďáru	Nature Reserve		acidophilous montane beech forest
Bystřice	Nature Reserve		mixed montane forest
Čerchovské hvozdy	National Nature Reserve		primal mixed beech forest
Diana	Nature Reserve		primeval herb-rich forest
Dlouhý vrch	Nature Reserve		montane sycamore-beech forest
Farské bažiny	Nature Reserve		bog spruce forest
Hvožďanská louka	Nature Monument		managed meadow
Jezírka u Rozvadova	Nature Reserve		peat bog
Křížový kámen	Nature Reserve		raised bog forest with peat lakes
Louka u Staré Huti	Nature Monument		managed bog meadow
Malý Zvon	Nature Reserve		autochthonous beech forest
Milov	Nature Monument		sloped spring peat bog
Na požárech	National Nature Monument		transitional bog (originally declared for grouse Grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes. They are sometimes considered a family Tetraonidae, though the American Ornithologists' Union and many others include grouse as a subfamily Tetraoninae in the family Phasianidae...  protection)
Nad Hutí	Nature Reserve		autochthonous beech forest
Ostrůvek	Nature Reserve		raised bog forest
Pavlova Huť Pavlova Hut Nature Reserve Pavlova Huť is a Nature Reserve within the Český les Landscape Protected Area in the western part of the Pilsen Region of the Czech Republic. It is named after a former glass works village of the same name which was located nearby...	Nature Reserve		bog spruce forest
Pleš	Nature Reserve		ravine sycamore and sloped beech forest
Podkovák Podkovák Nature Reserve Podkovák is a Nature Reserve within the Český les Landscape Protected Area in the western part of the Pilsen Region of the Czech Republic. It protects a small raised bog forest in a small depression with Pinus uncinata ssp. rotundata. Wood Grouses appear in the reserve. The area is ....	Nature Reserve		raised bog forest
Skalky na Sádku	Nature Monument		spruce-beach forest
Starý Hirštejn	Nature Reserve		autochthonous mixed forest
Tišina	Nature Reserve		acidophilous montane beech forest
Tři Znaky	Nature Reserve		declaration pending
Veský mlýn	Nature Monument		transitional bog