Press and data
Four in ten of the ancient trees we map in European cities are not European species: 915 of 3207, across 200 of 620 cities. The most common of the lot is a tree that exists nowhere in the wild.
Ancient Trees maps the oldest and most remarkable trees of the world's cities, one tree at a time, with sources recorded per tree. 4,680 trees in 949 cities across 60 countries so far, 662 distinct species, 4677 of them carrying their sources on the page.
Stories from the data
August 2026: Europe's oldest city trees are mostly immigrants. 915 of the 3207 trees we map in European cities are species that are not native to Europe, and the commonest of all, the London plane (297 trees in 111 cities), exists nowhere in the wild. The individual arrivals carry the story: an ombu in Seville said to have come back with Christopher Columbus's son around 1529, Paris's oldest tree grown from seed posted out of the Appalachians in 1601, a London mulberry left over from a royal silk scheme that failed because silkworms will not eat black mulberry leaves. The full list.
August 2026: which European city gives a tree lover the best single afternoon? Measured by how many remarkable trees stand within one honest walk of each other, not by how many a city has. The ranking.
Standing: the oldest tree in every country we map. One tree per country, each with its sources. The list.
A local angle is one email away: for any of the 949 cities we can supply that city's own fact sheet, its oldest tree, its story and what stands within a walk.
Press kit
Boilerplate, one paragraph: Ancient Trees (ancienttrees.app) maps the most remarkable old trees of the world's cities: 4,680 trees in 949 cities so far, each with its sources, its story, its location and, where trees stand close enough, a walking route past them. Photographs are openly licensed, and a location we are not sure of is marked approximate.
Assets, free to reuse in coverage: the logo (SVG), the logo (PNG), the logo with the name (PNG) · a tree page · a data story. More screenshots or a custom crop on request.
Tree photographs: 1476 of the 4,680 trees carry a photograph under an open licence, most from Wikimedia Commons and iNaturalist. Each records its licence and required credit on the tree's own page, and the credit must travel with the image: a CC BY photograph published without attribution puts the licence in breach.
What this data is, and what it is not
It is a count of the trees we have published, not a census of every old tree in Europe. The map is denser where countries publish open tree registers and thinner where they do not, so coverage reflects data availability as much as it reflects trees. Ages are as sourced, and where sources disagree the tree's page says so rather than picking a winner. Locations are marked either confirmed or approximate, and the approximate ones say so next to the directions button, because sending someone to a spot where the tree is not is the one mistake this project cannot afford.
Getting in touch
For the underlying data as a spreadsheet, a per-city fact sheet, extra screenshots, or anything else: send a message and say what you need.