Photo: Tkarcher (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This oak has outlasted the village it once stood outside, the Bavarian duchy that once ruled the land, and most of its own major branches.
Ancient trees in Germany
Germany protects individual trees the way other countries protect buildings. This page maps 100 remarkable trees across 8 cities in Germany, each one researched and verified. The oldest of them is The Krüner Eiche in Munich, at approximately 600 years.
A Naturdenkmal is a legal designation attached to one named object, and the reason for it gets written down: Munich's 2021 ordinance protects a lime by the Badenburger See for bizarrer und knorriger Wuchs, bizarre and gnarled growth, and an ash on Leinthalerstrasse for an extremely wide spreading crown, with no age, no measurement and nothing else on file. Nuremberg fits six separately protected trees onto 1.7 hectares of one small park that used to be a quarantine station. Berlin supplies the age: Dicke Marie, in the Tegel Forest, had probably been growing for a long time before the city got its first written mention in 1237. Four cities and 61 trees are mapped so far, and the paperwork here is usually better than the dating.
Every mapped city in Germany
1Munich45 trees · oldest approximately 600 years2
Berlin19 trees · oldest 500-900 years (disputed)3
Nuremberg10 trees · oldest around 400 years4
Leipzig7 trees · oldest 5
Frankfurt6 trees · oldest over 300 years6Cologne5 trees · oldest 7Dresden4 trees · oldest 250 to 300 years8Potsdam4 trees · oldest roughly 300 years
Munich45 trees · oldest approximately 600 years2Berlin19 trees · oldest 500-900 years (disputed)3Nuremberg10 trees · oldest around 400 years4Leipzig7 trees · oldest 5Frankfurt6 trees · oldest over 300 years6Cologne5 trees · oldest 7Dresden4 trees · oldest 250 to 300 years8Potsdam4 trees · oldest roughly 300 years33 species grow in Germany
Oaks Pedunculate Oak 13 · Sessile Oak 3 · Northern Red Oak 2 · Turkey Oak 2 · Overcup Oak 1
Beeches European Beech 6 · Copper Beech 5 · Fern-leaved Beech 3 · Weeping Beech 3
Elms and zelkovas European White Elm 4 · Wych Elm 1
Planes London Plane 11
Limes Large-leaved Lime 6 · Small-leaved Lime 6 · Lime 2 · Moltke Lime 1
Maples Norway Maple 2 · Sycamore 1
Chestnuts, walnuts and hazels Horse Chestnut 6 · Caucasian Wingnut 2
Conifers Bald Cypress 2 · Ginkgo 2 · Dawn Redwood 1 · European Yew 1 · Giant Sequoia 1
More broadleaf trees European Ash 3 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 2 · Mediterranean Hackberry 2 · Amur Cork Tree 1 · Downy Birch 1 · Hornbeam 1 · White Ash 1 · White Willow 1
The oldest tree mapped in Germany
Trees from Germany also appear in Europe's Ancient Oaks You Can Actually Visit · Europe's Oldest City Trees Are Mostly Immigrants · The Ginkgos Worth a November Trip. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.