At Purkersdorf Nature Park on the outskirts of Vienna, visitors can experience nature in all its intensity and diversity. The nature park promotes recreation and protects biodiversity through renaturation, deadwood management and the conservation of small water bodies.
The Purkersdorf Nature Park aims in particular to give children a good understanding of the environment and the interconnections within nature. Since June 2024, the Special Needs School, the Primary School and the Schöffelschule (secondary school) in Purkersdorf have formed a joint Nature Park School Campus. Through hands-on projects such as building nesting boxes, maintaining biotopes or exploring watercourses, pupils get to know and appreciate the diversity of the Vienna Woods right on their doorstep. In collaboration with the partner primary school in Gablitz, pupils experience the forest as a ‘tangible’ learning space for traditional school subjects. The aim of our initiatives is to foster a lasting awareness of the need to preserve natural habitats in the region through active experience and discovery.
The history of the nature park began in 1968 with an initiative by the city gardener Josef Elsinger, who created a nature trail along the Wienfluss. On this basis, the area of the municipal forest was officially opened as the “Sandsteinwienerwald Nature Park” on 26 April 1975. Over the following decades, the infrastructure was steadily expanded: the 27-metre-high viewing platform on the Rudolfshöhe (1978), wildlife enclosures for deer and wild boar, and accessible interactive stations made the park a major local recreational destination in the Vienna Woods, which scores particularly highly for its easy accessibility by S-Bahn.
From the year 2000 onwards, the focus shifted to experiencing nature “with all the senses”. With new themed trails and modern nature conservation concepts, the park will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025 as a vibrant place where people and the environment come together.
The municipality of Purkersdorf is distinguished by its exceptional location in the heart of the Vienna Woods. Around 82% of the municipal area consists of woodland, most of which is managed in accordance with principles of near-natural forestry. The town takes pride in its identity as the ‘green lung’ of the metropolis of Vienna and in its cultural tradition, which ranges from the imperial ‘Waldambt’ at Purkersdorf Castle to the architectural gem of Josef Hoffmann’s Purkersdorf Sanatorium. Purkersdorf sees itself as a modern town of nature and culture, where the local population’s sense of identity is closely linked to nature conservation and sustainable regional development.
