Egapark, Erfurt

With an area of 36 hectares, egapark in Erfurt is one of Germany's large garden and leisure parks. The park area is located in the southwest of the city on the 265 meter high Cyriaksberg. Originating from a former city fortification, the area was redesigned as a public green space from 1885 and subsequently further developed. After a first horticultural show in 1950, the International Horticultural Exhibition, held regularly from 1961 onwards, was the largest and most important event of its kind in the GDR and in the socialist camp.

The facility, which is open year-round and requires an entrance fee, combines various exhibition halls, plant show houses, themed gardens and rest areas. The main attractions in the egapark include, in addition to the largest contiguous flower bed in Europe with 6000 square meters, an observation tower, an observatory as well as the largest children's playground in Thuringia and the only horticultural museum in the country.

The park, which has been a listed monument since 1992 due to its unique horticultural design concept, is one of the main works of the landscape architect Reinhold Lingner and is one of the most important testimonies to the garden architecture of the 1960s in Germany. Representing the long horticultural tradition of the "flower city" of Erfurt, the garden show grounds have been visited by over 45 million guests since 1961. With an average of 450,000 visitors per year, egapark is - next to Wartburg Castle - the most visited tourist attraction in Thuringia.