Jasmund National Park
|
|
The Jasmund National Park is a nature reserve in the northeast of Rügen island in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is famous for the largest chalk cliffs of Germany, the so called Königsstuhl (literally "king's chair"). These cliffs are up to 161 m high above the Baltic Sea. The forests behind the cliffs are also part of the national park.
Consisting of only 30 km², this is the smallest national park of Germany. The park was founded in 1990 by the last government of the GDR prior to the German reunification.
One of the most scenic and best known of the chalk outcrops, the Wissower Klinken, collapsed into the Baltic Sea on February 24, 2005 in a landslide caused by spring-thaw weather conditions. The steep and sweeping vista was the subject of a well-known painting by the 19th century German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.