What is "orava"

The Orava is a 60.9 km long river in north-western Slovakia passing through a picturesque country, in the Orava county. Its source is nowadays the Orava water reservoir whose waters flooded the confluence of Biela (White) Orava and Čierna (Black) Orava in 1953. It flows into the river Váh near the village of Kraľovany.

Orava is a reservoir in northernmost Slovakia, forming the largest lake in Slovakia (35.2 km). It was created by the construction of a dam between 1941 and 1953 on the former two sources of the Orava river. Several former villages had to be inundated for this purpose. Probably the best known of them was Slanica, the birthplace of the Slovak intellectual and cleric Anton Bernolák (Antonius Bernolacius). Today, the reservoir is protected by the Horná Orava Protected Landscape Area.

The average depth of the reservoir is 15 meters. In the northeastern extension of the reservoir is Vtáčí ostrov (Birds' Island), a government ornithological reservation. Species like herons, great cormorants, spoonbills and others inhabit the reservation, which is one of important bird areas of Europe. The wetlands around the reservoir are also regarded to be one of the most important in Europe. The protection of the forests skirting the Orava Reservoir has helped prevent erosion.

Category:Dams in Slovakia Category:Reservoirs in Slovakia

Orava may refer to:

• Orava (region), a region in Slovakia and Poland
• Orava (river) in Slovakia
• Orava Castle, a castle in Slovakia
• Orava (reservoir), a reservoir in Slovakia
• Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary), a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary
• Orava Parish, a rural municipality in southern Estonia
  • Orava, Estonia, a village in Orava Parish
• Orava, Russia, an Estonian village in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia
• Sakari Orava (born 1945), Finnish sports-medicine surgeon
• Pikku Orava, a Finnish artist character that resembles the Chipmunks
• Orawa, a classical music piece by Wojciech Kilar

Orava is the traditional name of a region situated in northern Slovakia (as Orava) and partially also in southern Poland (as Orawa). It encompasses the territory of the former ( comitatus) Árva County or Arwa (German).