Niddapark, Public park in Frankfurt, Germany

Niddapark is a 168-hectare park in Frankfurt, the city's largest green space, with long north-south meadows crossed by the Nidda in the north. The A66 motorway runs over 600 metres of concrete pillars across the southern valley to let cold air flow toward the city. The photograph shows tall grass with small white flowers, rounded clusters of dark green trees, and a tree line on the horizon.

The park was created in 1989 for a Federal Garden Exhibition and designed by landscape architect Norfried Pohl. In 1991 it was integrated into Frankfurt's green belt system and has since become part of the city's broader green infrastructure.

Locals call the park "BUGA-Gelände" after the Bundesgartenschau held here in 1989, the garden show that occasioned its creation. The Nidda, which gives the park its name, flows through its northern section, and since 1991 the grounds have belonged to Frankfurt's green belt.

The park has a well-developed path network and various areas for play and exercise with open spaces and shaded zones for different activities. It's helpful to wear appropriate footwear since the paths traverse varying terrain and conditions that change with the seasons.

The Nidda was straightened and embanked in 1927 to prevent flooding, shaping the flat meadowland visible today. In the 1970s the city zoo opened a Niddazoo here with a pony farm and enclosures for wisent and red deer, a first step toward a planned 100-hectare branch that the garden-show park later displaced.