De Hoge Veluwe National Park (, "The High
Veluwe
The Veluwe () is a forest-rich ridge of hills (1100 km2) in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. The Veluwe features many different landscapes, including woodland, heath, some small lakes and Europe's largest sand drifts.
The Ve ...
") is a Dutch
national park in the province of
Gelderland
Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
near the cities of
Ede,
Wageningen
Wageningen () is a municipality and a historic city in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specialises in life sciences. The municipality had a population of in , of which many ...
,
Arnhem
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both ban ...
and
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. Th ...
. It is approximately in area, consisting of
heathland
A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...
s,
sand dunes, and
woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
s. It is situated in the
Veluwe
The Veluwe () is a forest-rich ridge of hills (1100 km2) in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. The Veluwe features many different landscapes, including woodland, heath, some small lakes and Europe's largest sand drifts.
The Ve ...
, the area of the largest
terminal moraine
A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...
in the Netherlands. Most of the landscape of the park and the Veluwe was created during the
last ice age. The alternating
sand dune areas and heathlands may have been caused by human utilization of the surrounding lands. The park forms one of the largest continuous nature reserves in the Netherlands.
History
The park was established by the businessman
Anton Kröller and his wife
Helene Kröller-Müller
Helene Kröller-Müller (11 February 1869 – 14 December 1939) was a German art collector. She was one of the first European women to put together a major art collection. She is credited with being one of the first collectors to recognise the ...
as a private
estate in 1909. Up until 1923 the park was under construction with
wildlife
Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...
being imported and the building of the hunting lodge and fences. The hunting residence is called ''St. Hubertus Hunting Lodge'' after St.
Hubertus
Hubertus or Hubert ( 656 – 30 May 727 A.D.) was a Christian saint who became the first bishop of Liège in 708 A.D. He is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metalworkers. Known as the "Apostle of the Ardennes", he w ...
and was designed by prominent Dutch architect
Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Hendrik Petrus Berlage (21 February 1856 – 12 August 1934) was a Dutch architect. He is considered one of the fathers of the architecture of the Amsterdam School.
Life and work
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, son of Nicolaas Willem Berlage and An ...
. Helene Kröller-Müller was an art collector and work had begun on a museum inside the park.
Due to worsening economic conditions the building of the museum was halted and the couple found themselves unable to keep the estate. In 1935 the art collection was donated to the State of the Netherlands, which then continued to build the
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...
. The park was handed over to a foundation, which received a loan from the State.
At that time the estate became the second national park in the Netherlands. The park is still one of the two private owned national parks in the Netherlands, but the only one that asks an entrance fee.
Layout and contents
The park is surrounded by fences. These, combined with the required entrance fee, led to years of protests by
cyclists
Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of Bicycle, cycles for transport, recreation, Physical exercise, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", ...
and
hikers
Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Hist ...
who were forced either to pay the fee or else to follow lengthy detours. In 2007 a solution was reached by charging reduced fees for cyclists who spend only a limited amount of time within the confines of the park.
There are three entrances, located at the villages of
Otterlo
Otterlo is a village in the municipality of Ede of province of Gelderland in the Netherlands, in or near the Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe.
The Kröller-Müller Museum, named after Helene Kröller-Müller, is situated nearby and has the world's ...
,
Hoenderloo
Hoenderloo () is a Dutch village located south west of the city of Apeldoorn. Most of the village is part of the municipality of Apeldoorn, but a small part belongs to the municipality of Ede, among which the hamlet .
The village is located in th ...
and
Schaarsbergen
Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...
.
There are several notable buildings inside the park. The
Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...
houses the art collection of the Kröller-Müller couple and includes numerous important works by artists such as
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
,
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Odilon Redon,
Georges-Pierre Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...
,
Auguste Rodin and
Piet Mondrian among others. A second museum,
Museonder, can be found at the park's visitor centre and focuses on the
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
and
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
of the Veluwe. Finally there is the aforementioned hunting residence which was designed by
Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Hendrik Petrus Berlage (21 February 1856 – 12 August 1934) was a Dutch architect. He is considered one of the fathers of the architecture of the Amsterdam School.
Life and work
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, son of Nicolaas Willem Berlage and An ...
.
A
bicycle sharing system
A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service where bicycles are available for shared use by individuals at low cost.
The programmes themselves include bo ...
in the park makes bicycles available for free to visitors, with much of the area being inaccessible by car.
Wildlife
During
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season)
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
the wildlife population in the park usually consists roughly of:
* 200
red deer
The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of we ...
* 150
roe deer
The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus''), also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapt ...
* 50
wild boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...
* 200
mouflon
The mouflon (''Ovis gmelini'') is a wild sheep native to Cyprus, the Caspian region from eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.
It is thought to be the ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds.
Taxonomy
''Ovis gmelini'' was the sc ...
* Small pack of
Eurasian wolf
The Eurasian wolf (''Canis lupus lupus''), also known as the common wolf,Mech, L. David (1981), ''The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species'', University of Minnesota Press, p. 354, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to Euro ...
Other species found in the park include
fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
es,
badger
Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by ...
s, and the
European pine marten
The European pine marten (''Martes martes''), also known as the pine marten, is a mustelid native to and widespread in most of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and parts of Iran, Iraq and Syria. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. ...
.
Miscellaneous
KLM
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...
's new
airliner, a Boeing 777-300ER, has been given the name "Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe", because an aircraft of this type is supposedly the most efficient and environmentally friendly one in its series.
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoge Veluwe
Protected areas established in 1935
1935 establishments in the Netherlands
National parks of the Netherlands
Forests of the Netherlands
Geography of Gelderland
Tourist attractions in Gelderland
Arnhem
Ede, Netherlands