Emscher Landscape Park is an 85-kilometer (53 mile) trail in the Ruhr area of Germany. What was once Germany’s “rust belt” and site for coal mining and steel production for over 150 years, now serves as a public space with indoor and outdoor sites scattered along the trail. Relics of the area’s industrial past—spoil tips, disused pithead towers, blast furnaces, and gasometers serve as a reminder to visitors of what the site once was.

At the center of the park system is the Emscher Park Cycle Trail that runs over former railway tracks, riverbanks, and woodland paths. Along the path of the trail, the park’s naturescape is easily accessible. As nature began to forest on, around, and along with the abandoned infrastructure, various plants and animals adapted to their new environment, eventually calling it home. Alongside these sites, other notable attractions include the Beckstraβe Tip, The Garden of Memories, a memorial to the Duisburg Inner Harbor, and North Duisburg Landscape Park.

Emscher Landscape Park has projects that are still a work in progress, including the ecological improvement of the river Emscher system as it was once used as the region’s open sewer space. In the works is the landscape redesign in New Emscher Valley, a new urban water landscape with attractive parks.