Eurasian Parks Beyond the Usual Lists, From the Tatras in 1949 to Socotra in 2008

Established on 1 January 1949, this is the oldest of Slovakia's nine national parks. It holds Gerlachovsky stit at 2,655 meters, the highest peak in Slovakia, and shares a natural border with Poland that led to a UNESCO transboundary biosphere reserve.

The Polish park was established in 1954 on a massif that straddles the Polish and Slovak border, with a nature reserve already protecting part of it since 1933. Its summit Diablak, at 1,725 meters, is the highest in this part of the Carpathians, and UNESCO named it a Biosphere Reserve in 1976.

Proclaimed in 1960, the park covers the western part of the Adriatic island of Mljet in Croatia. Its two saltwater lakes, Veliko jezero and Malo jezero, are the centerpiece, and the Isle of St Mary with its monastery sits inside Veliko jezero.

Established on 21 December 1962, Rondane is Norway's oldest national park. Ten peaks rise above 2,000 meters, the highest being Rondeslottet at 2,178 meters, and the park shelters wild mountain reindeer and the setting that helped inspire Ibsen's 1867 play Peer Gynt.

Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, this Turkish landscape of volcanic rock has been carved by erosion into fairy chimneys. Medieval people hollowed many of them into churches, houses and underground cities such as Kaymakli and Derinkuyu.

Established in 1993 in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region, it is described as the highest national park in the world. It contains four peaks above 8,000 meters, K2, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak, and the Baltoro, Panmah, Biafo and Hispar glaciers.

Established in 1995 and formally inaugurated in 2001 with support from the World Wildlife Fund and the German government, this park in Georgia's Lesser Caucasus protects Caucasus mixed forest. Together with the adjoining Borjomi Nature Reserve it makes up more than one percent of Georgia's territory.

UNESCO recognized this Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean as a World Heritage Site in 2008. About a third of its plant life is found nowhere else on earth, and the island also supports roughly 60,000 people, mostly indigenous Soqotri.