The Jasmund National Park (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

: ''Nationalpark Jasmund'') is a nature reserve on the

Jasmund Jasmund is a peninsula of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is connected to the Wittow peninsula and to the Muttland main section of Rügen by the narrow land bridges Schaabe and Schmale Heide, respectively. Sassnitz, S ...

peninsula, in the northeast of

Rügen Rügen (; la, Rugia, ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, where ...

island in

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...

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 ...

. It is famous for containing the largest

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. C ...

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

s in Germany, the '' Königsstuhl'' (German = "king's chair"). These cliffs are up to above the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. The beech forests behind the cliffs are also part of the national park. Consisting of only , this is the smallest

national park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

in Germany. The park was founded in 1990 by the last government of

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

(GDR) prior to the

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

. On June 25, 2011, the beech forest in the park was added to the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

World Heritage List A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

as an extension of the Primeval Beech Forests of Europe site because of its undisturbed nature and its testimony to the ecological history of Europe since the last

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

Chalk cliffs

The cliffs of Jasmund National Park belong to the Rügen Chalk unit. The chalk cliffs face constant

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

. With every storm, parts of the cliffs fall, including rocks and

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s of

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate throu ...

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...

s and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) o ...

s. The most majestic part of the cliffs is the ''Königsstuhl'' (English: king's chair) which stands at . One of the most scenic and best known of the chalk outcrops, the ''Wissower Klinken'', collapsed into the

on February 24, 2005, in a landslide caused by spring-thaw weather conditions.

Flora and fauna

Because of the special geological characteristics of the Jasmund National Park, it is home to many rare plants and animals. In the woods of the Stubnitz, behind the cliffs, there are numerous water-filled dells and hollows, most of which came into existence as ice-age

dead-ice Dead ice is ice which, though part of a glacier or ice sheet, is no longer moving. When this melts it does so in situ, leaving behind a hummocky terrain known as dead-ice moraine which is produced by the deposition of glacio-fluvial sediments and ...

holes. A wide range of plants are found in this area, for example,

black alder Black alder is a common name for several plants and may refer to: *''Alnus glutinosa ''Alnus glutinosa'', the common alder, black alder, European alder, European black alder, or just alder, is a species of tree in the family Betulaceae, nativ ...

, European crab apple, wild service tree,

yew Yew is a common name given to various species of trees. It is most prominently given to any of various coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Taxus'': * European yew or common yew (''Taxus baccata'') * Pacific yew or western yew (''Taxus br ...

and

orchids Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

(like the ''

Cypripedium calceolus ''Cypripedium calceolus'' is a lady's-slipper orchid, and the type species of the genus ''Cypripedium''. It is native to Europe and Asia. Taxonomy ''Cypripedium'' comes from the Greek Κυπρισ πεδιον (''Kupris pedion''), meaning Ven ...

''). A variety of birds live in the park:

white-tailed eagle The white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla'') is a very large species of sea eagle widely distributed across temperate Eurasia. Like all eagles, it is a member of the family Accipitridae (or accipitrids) which includes other diurnal raptors ...

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

, house martin and the

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-grey bac ...

Visitor management

Since its creation in 1934, the Jasmund National Park has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. One of the main tasks of the National Park Authority is to ensure that the diverse habitats of the park remain largely undisturbed, whilst still allowing visitors an insight into the nature of the region. In March 2004, the

visitor centre A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to visitors. Types of visitor center A visi ...

, the

Königsstuhl National Park Centre The Königsstuhl National Park Centre (german: Nationalpark-Zentrum Königsstuhl) is the visitor centre for the Jasmund National Park on the German Baltic Sea island of Rügen. It was opened in 2004 and, with around 300,000 visitors per year ( 20 ...

, was opened.

Gallery

Image:Koenigsstuhl_Ruegen.jpg, The '' Königsstuhl'' (King's Chair) Image:Rügen_Kreidefelsen_Königsstuhl_2011.jpg, The ''Königsstuhl'',
view from the south Image:Kreidefelsen, Stubbenkammer (2011-05-21) 7.JPG, ''Victoria-Sicht'' (Victoria's View) and ''Königsstuhl'' from above Image:Königsstuhl und Viktoria-Sicht.jpg, ''Victoria-Sicht'' and ''Königsstuhl'' from the

Image:Kreidefelsen Rügen.jpg, View down the white cliffs Image:Kreidefelsen_Ruegen.jpg, The chalk cliffs Image:Stubbenkammer.jpg, ''Stubbenkammer'' Image:Wissower Klinken April 2004.jpg, ''Wissower Klinken''
(April 2004) Image:Wissower Klinken August 2005.jpg, ''Wissower Klinken''
(August 2005) Image:Victoria-Sicht 3.jpg, ''Victoria-Sicht'' (Victoria's View) Image:Jasmund1.jpg, Black alder

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

Image:Zeeegel3.jpg, Unfossilised sea urchin

References

External links

*
Jasmund National Park pictures and information about the chalk cliffs

Official site

Photos of the park's beech forests
{{Authority control National parks of Germany Cliffs of Germany Forests and woodlands of Germany Protected areas of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Protected areas established in 1990 Geography of Rügen 1990 establishments in East Germany Landforms of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Primeval Beech Forests in Europe