A grass-covered, dome-shaped alpine range in Austria, now one of the country's largest UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.
Nock Mountains National Park
Nock Mountains National Park protects the central highlands of the Nock Mountains, the westernmost and highest range of the Gurktal Alps in Austria. Spanning parts of Carinthia, Salzburg, and Styria, the range is defined by gentle, grass-covered dome summits known locally as Nocken, with the Eisenhut (2,441 m) in Styria forming the highest peak and the Rosennock (2,440 m) as the highest summit in Carinthia.
Unlike the sharper, glaciated High Tauern to the northwest, the Nock Mountains were largely unglaciated during the Ice Age, leaving behind smooth, rounded terrain that served as an important glacial refugium. The protected landscape includes montane and subalpine forests of spruce, larch, and Swiss stone pine, extensive alpine meadows, bogs, small mountain lakes, and rich habitats for both common and rare alpine species.
The original national park was established by the Carinthian state government in 1987 and later incorporated into a much larger UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in July 2012, recognizing the area's outstanding ecological, cultural, and scenic value.
