Results obtained with two versions of the Limited Area Model (LAM) ALADIN over differently sized integration domains (large, intermediate and small) in the European area are presented in order to investigate both the general model performance and the influence of domain choice on the quality of obtained results. The aim is also to illustrate the issues related to the strategy of selection of the optimal integration domain. Each of these studies has been performed with two versions of the ALADIN model: the first one is ALADIN-CLIMATE developed at CNRM/Météo-France, the second one is ALADIN-CLIMATE/CZ prepared at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI). This leaves us with total of six experiments forced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-40 reanalysis data. The west Balkan domain covering Bulgaria is used as an evaluation region for investigation of the temporal and spatial properties of simulated precipitation and temperature fields. This region has been selected for its challenging orography making the results obtained here a valuable source for studies leading to further developments in climate modeling. It was found that size of the domain strongly affects the quality of obtained results. We have found that the largest domain reproduces the spatial characteristics of climate (such as bias) very well, but its use results in a poor representation of temporal aspects, which are however captured very well in experiments over both smaller domains. Our findings suggest that there is no optimal choice of domain size, securing the best results for both spatial and temporal evaluation. Our study also proves that model ALADIN can be efficiently used for climate research purposes, which together with its modest computational demands should make it as an attractive modeling choice for the Central and Eastern European climate research community. K e y w o r d s : ALADIN, climate modeling, domain size, ECMWF, ERA-40 reanalysis A. Farda et al. 314 Stud. Geophys. Geod., 54 (2010)