Press releases

City informs about 14 of its natural monuments with modern QR codes

• City uses modern QR codes on small information boards to provide more detailed information on site about 14 of its natural monuments.
• The selected natural monuments can be found throughout the city.
• If the new service is well received by the public, more natural monuments could also be provided with the small information boards.

The Environment Department has prepared a new offer. Small plaques have been attached to a total of 14 natural monuments in the city. They contain brief information about the respective natural monument and a QR code. "Using this QR code, interested parties can call up further information about the respective natural monument on the City of Aachen website directly on site with the help of a modern cell phone," said Dr. Markus Kremer, Head of the Environment Department, at the presentation of the new offer at the Forster Linde natural monument.

"Putting Aachen's nature in the spotlight"

"If there is strong interest from the public, the administration will examine whether the project can be expanded to include further natural monuments or other topics," said Kremer. With the natural monuments selected so far, every district should be represented with at least one natural monument. "We have a lot of nature here in Aachen and want to continue to focus on it," said Kremer: "With our campaign, we want to show what natural treasures we have in Aachen."

Forster lime tree natural monument

The Forster lime tree is the oldest natural monument in the city of Aachen and probably the oldest "living cultural asset" in the Aachen region. It is difficult to determine how old it actually is. The fact that the lime tree is many hundreds of years old is historically proven and, with a trunk circumference of more than 10 meters, easily recognizable for the citizen.

"During a visit by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1852), the age of the lime tree was estimated at an impressive 800 years," reported Jürgen Drautmann, tree expert in the Environment Department of the City of Aachen. Experts assume that the Forster lime tree served as a "court lime tree" in the Middle Ages due to its close proximity to a former alderman's house.

To this day, the Forster Linde is a popular meeting place for young and old and a defining and identity-forming element of the Forst district of Aachen.

Experts from the environmental department, including Drautmann, have been taking intensive care of the lime tree for years. The tree care measures that are required time and again serve to preserve and promote this unique tree.

430 designated natural monuments in Aachen

But the Forster lime tree is just one natural monument. 13 others throughout the city have also been marked with a QR code. There are a total of 160 natural monuments in Aachen's city center, with a further 270 designated in the city districts.

The natural monuments marked so far can be found here:

• Winter lime tree, Trierer Straße/Ringstraße
• Winter lime tree, Forster lime tree
• Hornbeam group, Schildchensweg cemetery
• European beech, St. Rafael Monastery Park
• Giant sequoia, city garden, Passstrasse
• Stieleichenallee, Heyder Feldweg
• Plane tree, Hansemannplatz
• Horse chestnut tree Rathausstraße, corner of Orsbacher Straße
• Field elm, Monheimsallee
• Field elm, Stadtgarten/Passstraße
• Gingko/fan leaf tree, Stadtgarten/Passstraße
• Plane tree, Abteiplatz in Burtscheid
• Silver maple, Von Halfern Park
• Cake tree, Kaiser-Friedrich-Park

Further information on the Internet: www.aachen.de/naturdenkmale