The Oak of the Dörfchen, Nymphenburg
- Species
- Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur)
- Age estimate
- undated, called unique in size for the city
- Location
- Schlosspark Nymphenburg, near the Brunnhaus, 80638 München (Nymphenburg)
- Access
- Free, public park (the palace interior and botanical garden charge separate admission)
- Getting there
- 5 min walk from Schloss Nymphenburg tram stop (line 17)
This oak grows in the one part of a royal palace garden built to look like it wasn't designed at all. The Dörfchen, or little village, is a cluster of rustic farm-style buildings inside Nymphenburg Palace Park, built from 1803 as a picturesque contrast to the palace's formal Baroque and later English-landscape grounds surrounding it, complete with a working dairy and a chapel meant to evoke ordinary rural life for an audience that never had to live it. The oak stands near the Brunnhaus, on the way toward the Badenburg pavilion and the park's Großer See lake, and Munich's own natural monument register singles it out as unique in size within the city, a claim about scale rather than age, since no source gives the tree a documented planting date or precise age. What is certain is that it has grown large enough, inside grounds that have been continuously maintained by the Bavarian royal family and its successors since the 17th century, to earn individual legal protection in a park already full of centuries-old formal avenues.
Opens directions in your maps app. 5 min walk from Schloss Nymphenburg tram stop (line 17)
The pin marks the right spot roughly, not the tree itself. It stands here, but we have not confirmed the precise position on the ground yet. Know exactly where it is?
Trees nearby
- The Röth-Linde, 300-350 years (Nederling, Moosach)
- The Japanese Pagoda Tree of Karolinenplatz, undated, protected for rarity of size in the cityscape (Maxvorstadt)
- The Krüner Eiche, approximately 600 years (Sendling-Westpark)