Thuringian Forest Nature Park (german: Naturpark Thüringer Wald) is one of two

nature park A nature park, or sometimes natural park, is a designation for a protected natural area by means of long-term land planning, sustainable resource management and limitation of agricultural and real estate developments. These valuable landscape ...

s in the state of

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. Founded in 1990, and expanded in 2018, the nature park now covers and area of more than . It extends around the

Rennsteig The () is a ridge walk as well as an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany. The long-distance trail runs for about from and the valley in the northwest to and the ...

and comprises almost the entire

Thuringian Forest The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German), is a mountain range in the southern parts of the German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorge on its north-west side i ...

and the Thuringian Highlands with

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

in northwest and

Sonneberg Sonneberg in Thuringia, Germany, is the seat of the Sonneberg district. It is in the Franconian south of Thuringia, neighboring its Upper Franconian twin town Neustadt bei Coburg. Sonneberg became known as the "world toy city", and is home to ...

in the south. The nature park protection includes the biosphere reservation, and a number of dams such as Tambach-Dietharz Dam, Schmalwasser Dam, Ohra Dam, Lütsche Dam and the

Leibis-Lichte Dam The Leibis-Lichte Dam (german: Talsperre Leibis –Lichte) is a dam in the German state of Thuringia in the Thuringian Highland. The dam was completed in 2005 to impound the River Lichte, between the Lichte municipality section Geiersthal and ...

. The highest mountains in the park are the

Großer Beerberg The Großer Beerberg is a mountain, , whose summit is the highest point in the Thuringian Forest and the state of Thuringia. It is located between the three villages of Heidersbach, Goldlauter and Gehlberg in the borough of Suhl. The mountain is ...

() and the

Schneekopf The Schneekopf near Gehlberg in the Thuringian county of Ilm-Kreis is and thus the second highest peak in the Thuringian Forest after its western neighbour, the Großer Beerberg (). The ''Adler'' Saddle between them is only about 59.4 metres ...

().

Biosphere Reserve

The nature park is an expansion of an older protection; the "UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Thuringian Forest" established in 1979 as the first

UNESCO biosphere reserve Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO, that aims to establish a scientific basis for the improvement of relationships between people and their environments. MAB's work enga ...

in Germany. The biosphere protection is located in the Thuringian-Franconian low mountains, and after expansions in 1990 and 2018 it now covers an area of 337 km².

References

External links

* {{Authority control Thuringian Forest Nature parks in Thuringia South Thuringia

Biosphere Reserve

See also

References

External links