Photo: Zrce.eu Tours UG · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jarun is a lake on the southern edge of the Jarun neighbourhood in the south-west of Zagreb, formed by the river Sava on the site of a former gravel pit. It is the setting of the Jarun sports and leisure centre, built in the 1980s for the Universiade, where people row, paddle, sail, surf, swim, jog, cycle and skate. Cafés and clubs line the shore, a Walk of Fame honours great Croatian athletes, and the lake is the home of the INmusic festival.
How it formed
Jarun began as a backwater of the Sava. After the great flood of 1964 an embankment was built along the river, cutting the pond off from it; gravel for the embankment was dug here, and the deepened pond became a lake. In the 1980s it was given its present shape: a large lake, a small lake and a separate course for rowing, canoeing and kayaking, with six islands, among them Universiade Island, Rowers’ Island and Love Island.
History
Jarun was once a small village of two streets, marked on a map of Zagreb in 1728, whose people grew maize and vegetables by the water. The sports and recreation centre around the lake was built for the 1987 Summer Universiade, and a year later Jarun was declared a bathing resort. The student campus, the Mladost sports park and new neighbourhoods followed, and the lake became the city’s favourite outdoor playground, known locally as Zagreb’s sea.
Gallery
Photo: Zrce.eu Tours UG · CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Zrce.eu Tours UG · CC BY-SA 3.0
Visit
Getting there
Nearest settlement: Zagreb
Swimming
No reliable information
Tips
Jarun, Zagreb’s lakeside playground, has about 2.5 km of pebbly shore with lifeguards and regularly tested water in the swimming season. The Small Lake and its six islands are set aside for recreation, while the Large Lake has the rowing course, which hosted a FISA World Rowing Cup in 2021. A track of about 5.5 km circles the lake (about 12 km including the islands), and the old road around it has been replaced by a modern bike path. Jarun also hosts regattas, canoe and swimming events, clubbing and the INmusic festival in June.
The official swimming season has run from 1 June to 15 September in recent years, with lifeguards on the official beaches from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the water sampled twice a month; check the City of Zagreb’s current results before you swim.
Trams 5 and 17 run from the main square to Jarun in about half an hour; the lake is also easy to reach by car. Five pebble beaches line the shore, and rowing, canoeing, kayaking and sailing clubs work from the water’s edge.
Away from the water there are a skate park, a sculpture park, a small botanical garden, playgrounds and courts for basketball, beach volleyball, beach handball, table tennis and bocce, and cafés and clubs along the shore keep going late into the night. Concerts, festivals and races fill the calendar, mostly in spring and summer.
Nearby lakes
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Guides
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Sources & data
- Croatia's 2022 Water Framework Directive reporting to the EEA: lake water bodies (SWB, category LW), field cArea, European Environment Agency (WISE WFD), reported by Croatia, 2022
- Wikidata: Jarun Lake (Q116952845), Wikimedia Foundation
- OpenStreetMap: Jarun (relation 2149852), OpenStreetMap contributors
- Wikipedia: Jarun, Wikimedia Foundation
- From the museum to the beach, Zagreb Tourist Board
- Lake Jarun, Time Out Croatia
- Wikipedia: ŠRC Jarun, Wikimedia Foundation
- The story of Jarun, one of Zagreb’s most beautiful neighbourhoods, Love Zagreb
- Zagreb lakes ready for swimmers, Total Croatia News