Nature parks in Germany (German: Naturparks) have been established under section 22, paragraph 4 of that country's Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG). As of 2020[update] there were 103 nature parks, comprising about 27 percent of the total land area of Germany and are brought together under the Association of German Nature Parks.[1] In total there are 23,159 Protected Areas in Germany.[2]
Parks that overlap into neighbouring countries are led by Europarc.[3]
The oldest nature park is Lüneburg Heath Nature Park, whose core area was established in 1921 as a nature reserve; by 2007, it had expanded to more than four times its original area.[4] As of 2020[update] the largest nature reserve in Germany, with 3,940 square kilometres (1,520 sq mi), is the Southern Black Forest Nature Park.[5]
The surface area of nature parks in Germany increased by 42% between 1998 and the end of 2019 (this corresponds to around 3.0 million hectares).[6]
The 16 national parks of Germany, under paragraph 24 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act, are not listed here. See List of national parks of Germany.
- ^ Verband Deutscher Naturparke
- ^ "Protected Planet | Germany". Protected Planet. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "About us". EUROPARC Federation. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ^ "Lüneburg Heath Nature Park - The largest interconnected heath areas in central Europe - Lüneburg Heath Nature Park - Home". naturpark-lueneburger-heide.de. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ^ "Naturparks in Deutschland nach Größe". Statista (in German). Retrieved 2020-09-01.
- ^ "BfN: Naturparke". www.bfn.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-09-01.