Lobau, Biosphere reserve in Donau-Auen National Park, Vienna, Austria.
Lobau is a wetland in the Donau-Auen National Park in Vienna, covering more than 2,300 hectares (5,680 acres) of floodplain forest, meadows and water channels along the northern Danube riverbank. The Upper Lobau in the western section is accessible and connects the protected zone to residential districts on the city's edge, while the Lower Lobau remains secluded and shaped by regular flooding.
Until 1745 the area was an imperial hunting ground, before it was placed under protection for the first time in 1905. In 1996 it became part of the Donau-Auen National Park to preserve the natural riverbanks along the Danube.
The term Lobau comes from the Old High German word Lo, meaning dense forest, and reflects the importance of this landscape for the people of Vienna. Today residents use the meadows and riverside strips for walking, cycling and swimming, especially on warm weekends.
The area offers many marked walking and cycling trails through the floodplain, some of them on wooden boardwalks through wet zones. In summer there is a swimming spot at Dechantlacke in the upper section with shallow water and surrounding meadows for sunbathing.
The Heißländen are dry gravel banks within the wetland, where heat and dryness have created plant communities resembling savanna. This formation occurs in the edge zones, where the Danube rarely floods anymore and stones retain summer heat.
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