ABSTRACT

The Vienna green belt is one of the oldest urban green belts in the world. One hundred and fifty years ago Vienna’s citizens realised that an effective protection of urban gree  was needed. The protection of the Wienerwald, the first of the five landscapes of the Vienna green belt, was the first step. By 1905, four additional landscapes – Bisamberg, Marchfeld, Donauraum, Terrassenlandschaft had become part of what was then called the Viennese forest and meadows belt. Later, the aim was to protect single smaller green areas and to unify them with the growing green belt of Vienna. Today, the Vienna green belt comprises about half of Vienna. While the protection of the green belt was realised at an early stage, a connection with the limited urban green in the central parts of Vienna within this green belt has not yet happened. This remains a target for the future, as does the integration of the green belt within a larger regional setting: either the twin city concept Vienna-Bratislava or the even larger concept of the EU level CENTROPE region.