High Fens – Eifel Nature Park

High Fens – Eifel Nature Park
Naturpark Hohes Venn – Eifel
Landscape in the Hohes Venn
Location of the Hohes Venn–Eifel Nature Park in Germany
Location	North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Liège, Belgium
Nearest city	Schleiden, Germany
Coordinates	50°30′29″N 6°22′12″E / 50.508°N 6.37°E / 50.508; 6.37[1]
Area	2,485 km2 (959 sq mi)
Established	1960
www.naturpark-hohesvenn-eifel.de
Ramsar Wetland
Official name	Les Hautes Fagnes
Designated	24 March 2003
Reference no.	1405[2]

The German-Belgian High Fens – Eifel Nature Park (German: Naturpark Hohes Venn – Eifel), often called the North Eifel Nature Park (Naturpark Nord Eifel), is a cross-border nature park with elements in the German federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as the Belgian province of Liège. It has a total area of 2,485 km² (959 sq mi).

The nature park lies between Langerwehe and Eupen in the north and Bad Münstereifel, Prüm and Sankt Vith in the south and covers six regions: the Rur Eifel, the High Eifel, the Limestone Eifel, the Our valley, the Venn Foreland and the Hohes Venn, a raised bog and heath landscape, remnants of the last ice age 7,500 years ago.

The geographical description North Eifel in its narrowest sense only covers the Eifel landscape between Zitter Forest in the south and Aachen in the north, Bad Münster Eifel to the east and over the Rur Eifel to the Belgian border in the west. The Hohe Venn is geographically seen as a separate natural region within the whole Eifel area, but is nevertheless included in the nature park.

In 1960, the president of the now-defunct administrative district of Aachen, Hubert Schmitt-Degenhardt, founded the North Eifel Nature Park. In 1971 it was merged with the Belgian Parc Naturel Hautes Fagnes to become the Hohes Venn – Eifel Nature Park. The emblem of the nature park is the black grouse.^[3]

In the middle of the nature park, largely around the former Belgian Army military training area at Vogelsang and the Rur Valley Dam, is the Eifel National Park founded in 2004 and expanded after the withdrawal of the Belgians on 1 January 2006.^{[citation needed]}

• Baedeker Reiseführer Belgien

• List of nature parks in Germany
• Our Natural Park

• High Fens – Eifel Nature Park