Ennobled as a world heritage site
They once grew everywhere in Central Europe, but now we have to protect them - old, near-natural beech forests. Humans have dangerously pushed back the Central European primeval forest. Their spread in Europe after the last ice age makes beech forests unique. In 2011, five beech forests in Germany, including the Hainich, were therefore added to the World Heritage List.
The most valuable relicts of natural old beech forests in Germany are part of the joint World Heritage Site - "Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe". As early as 2007, 10 sub-areas were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as "Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians" in Ukraine and the Slovak Republic. In 2011, this World Heritage Site was extended to include five German sub-areas and in 2017, 63 sub-areas in 10 European countries. These are beech forests in Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Austria, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine. On July 1, 2021, areas in Switzerland, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia and France were added. Our joint World Heritage Site thus connects 18 countries and 94 sub-areas.
This joint UNESCO World Heritage Site is an unprecedented success for nature conservation. Now these particularly valuable, original and now very rare beech forests, which only exist in Europe, can be preserved for posterity as the heritage of mankind.
The German sub-areas are selected forest areas of the Jasmund and Müritz National Parks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hainich in Thuringia, Kellerwald-Edersee in Hesse and the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve in Brandenburg.
The joint World Heritage Site thus reflects almost the entire spectrum of beech forest types in Europe , from the seashore to the tree line in the mountains and in a wide variety of locations.
The joint website of the sub-areas of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Beech Forests provides information on all the details of the World Heritage Site.
You can download a leaflet on the UNESCO World Heritage Beech Forests here.
World Heritage Trail
You can get the best impression of the special beech forests in the Hainich National Park, which have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on the World Heritage Trail. This trail is also described in the free app for the UNESCO World Heritage Beech Forests.
The app for the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ancient Beech Forests of Germany
The app provides information about the significance and objectives of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and presents the five German sub-areas of the World Heritage Site.
Each sub-area has a selected World Heritage route for visitors to explore. For each of these diverse and exciting routes, the app provides lots of additional information about the typical and unique features of the respective regional beech forests as well as other outstanding facilities in the protected area.
