Hardt, Public park in Wuppertal, Germany

Hardt is a park on the partly wooded Hardtberg ridge on the border between Elberfeld and Barmen, one of Germany's oldest municipal parks and part of the Strasse der Gartenkunst. Its areas differ: the Alte Hardt, the former quarry terraced with small squares, monuments and benches, the Neue Hardt with broad lawns, the Rosengarten, and the Botanischer Garten covering 2.5 hectares with around 4,000 plant species.

The Hardt was largely cleared of trees by the Thirty Years' War and later used as a quarry and pasture. In 1807 Elberfeld decided to reforest the ridge to counter the town's wood shortage. The physician Johann Stephan Anton Diemel had first areas laid out as a park and opened to the public; the Diemel monument (1824) and Diemeltreppe recall him. From 1880 garden director Heinrich Siesmayer redesigned the grounds as a landscape garden, incorporating the former quarry.

The botanical garden began in 1890 as a school garden on the northern edge of the Hardt, where the rose garden now lies. In 1910 it moved to its present south slope below Villa Eller and the Elisenturm, covering 2.5 hectares with around 4,000 plant species. The Diemel-Denkmal of 1824 and the Diemeltreppe recall physician Johann Stephan Anton Diemel, who opened the first gardened areas to the public.

The main historic entrance is on the southwest side of the Hardt, at the edge of Elberfeld's city centre. From there, footpaths such as the Diemeltreppe climb the slope; the former quarry area is laid out in terraces, with steps linking small squares from the lower Hardtstrasse up to the Elisenhöhe. The upper meadows of the Neue Hardt serve as a sunbathing lawn in summer and a sledding slope in winter.

The former quarry above the Alte Hardt was folded into the park around 1880 and terraced into small levels with monuments, benches and viewpoints over Elberfeld. Its entrance is marked by a large arch bridge, and the Waldbühne stage below the rock face hosts summer concerts. A waterfall once fell there but no longer exists.