What is the oldest tree in Hallstatt?
The oldest tree with a stated age on this page is the Tausendjährige Linde, the 'thousand-year linden', on the bank of the Traun in Bad Ischl, about 20 kilometres north of Hallstatt. Despite its name, Upper Austria's register estimated it at 400 to 500 years when it was protected in 1980. In Hallstatt village itself no tree carries a date; the oldest dated tree by the lake is the Obertraun Dorfeibe, at roughly 200 years.
Upper Austria's natural monument register protected the Bad Ischl lime on 18 December 1980. At that time its trunk measured 5.45 metres round at one metre up, its crown 14 metres across and its height about 20 metres, and the file estimated its age at 400 to 500 years. The name, Tausendjährige Linde, doubles that, and no source supports the larger figure. Nor has anyone confirmed the tree recently: a citizen-science record from July 2026 places a large lime about 20 metres from the register's point, which fits but is not a confirmed identification. Two yews closer to the lake also carry ages. The Obertraun Dorfeibe was put at roughly 200 years in 1980 and the Bad Goisern church yew at roughly 200 in 2006; the other two yews carry girth but no date. The two Gosau trees, a copper beech protected for the round shape of its crown and a 27-metre wych elm last photographed in 2015, carry neither. The four yews stand a short train or boat ride apart around the lake; Gosau is up the valley road, and Bad Ischl lies further along the railway, past Bad Goisern.
One of Hallstatt's trees also appears in The Autumn Harvest.