Veluwezoom National Park is a national park of the Netherlands located in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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 ...

. This park is the oldest national park of the Netherlands. It has a surface area of 50 square kilometers at the southeastern edge of 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 ...

, a complex of terminal

push moraine A push moraine or pushed moraine is in geomorphology a moraine (a landform formed by glacial processes) that forms when the terminus advance of a lowland glacier pushes unstratified glacial sediment into a pile or linear ridge in front of it. A ...

s from the

Saalian glaciation The Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (german: Saale-Kaltzeit), Saale complex (''Saale-Komplex'') or Saale glacial stage (''Saale-Glazial'', colloquially also the ''Saale-Eiszei ...

. It has a pronounced relief by Dutch standards, with the highest point in the park at 110 meters above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

.
veluwezoom.nl
/ref> It is a private national park, owned by

Vereniging Natuurmonumenten Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland ( en, Society for Preservation of Nature Monuments in the Netherlands), also known as Vereniging Natuurmonumenten, is a Dutch nature conservation organization founded in 1905 by Jacobus Piet ...

, the largest nature conservation organisation in the Netherlands. The landscape of the park consists of

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and

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 cooler ...

, which is kept open by grazing of Highland cattle, and a small sand drift, which is kept open by human maintenance. The native fauna is represented by

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 wes ...

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 ...

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 b ...

and the regionally rare

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. ...

References

External links

Nationaal Park Veluwezoom
Natuurmonumenten {{authority control Protected areas established in 1930 1930 establishments in the Netherlands Forests of the Netherlands National parks of the Netherlands Geography of Gelderland Tourist attractions in Gelderland Arnhem Rozendaal