Geopark Ries
Nördlinger Ries: Swabian asteroid crater becomes UNESCO Geopark
Europe’s huge meteorite crater: information board in the Geopark Ries
© Imago Images
It worked on the second try: After years of effort, Unesco included the Swabian Geopark Ries in the worldwide network of Unesco Geoparks.
As Unesco reported in Paris on Wednesday, the Ries Geopark in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg is one of the eight newly added geoparks. There are now 177 global geoparks recognized by UNESCO in 46 countries.
Of the Ries Geopark consists mainly of an approximately 25-kilometer-wide asteroid crater in northern Swabia around the town of Nördlingen (Donau-Ries district). The landscape was created by the impact of a giant asteroid about 14.5 million years ago.
The Ries crater offers outstanding rock formations, so that the US space agency Nasa even sent its astronauts there for a training camp on the occasion of its moon missions half a century ago. Among the approximately 200 craters known worldwide, the Swabian crater is one of the best studied, Unesco emphasized.
“Geopark Ries is an impressive showcase of the earth’s history,” said the President of the German Unesco Commission, Maria Böhmer, about the inclusion in the network. “With its outstanding commitment to environmental education, research and sustainable tourism, the newly established Unesco Geopark is a model region for sustainable development in Germany.”
The district council of the Donau-Ries district had already launched the application in 2016. In 2019, UNESCO initially rejected the listing. It worked on the second try. There are now eight Unesco Geoparks in Germany.