The European country with the largest proportion of protected nature

In view of climate change, nature conservation is becoming increasingly important. But in which countries in Europe is the proportion of areas designated as areas worthy of protection particularly high?

And where are there less protected areas? A current analysis investigated this question.

The British energy saving portal Saveonenergy.com/uk included almost 80,000 nature reserves, nature parks, biosphere reserves and other areas in Europe designated as protected areas in its analysis, based on data from the European Environment Agency (EEA), and calculated the percentage of protected areas per country . The surprising result: Luxembourg is the country with the highest percentage of protected areas in Europe.

The small neighboring country of Germany has 134 designated areas protected under the country’s legislation, covering a total area of ​​1963 square kilometers. Compared to the size of Luxembourg (2586 km2), this means that 76 percent of the country’s area is nature reserves, i.e. more than two thirds. This could also be due to the fact that Luxembourg, with almost 625,000 inhabitants, is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe.

The 2nd and 3rd places in the countries with the largest proportion of nature reserves in Europe are Slovenia and Malta. Germany is in 10th place and is still among the top ten in the ranking. In this country, the percentage of nature reserves in the total area is around 31 percent. Incidentally, in another comparison in terms of protected areas, Germany is the clear leader: In Germany there are more than 17,000 designated nature parks, biosphere reserves, national parks and nature reserves – more than in any other country in Europe.

The 10 countries with the highest percentage of protected areas in Europe

The countries with the lowest proportion of nature reserves in Europe

According to calculations by Saveonenergy.com/uk, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the country with the lowest proportion of protected areas in Europe. Only 3.8 percent of the country’s area are designated protected areas. Romania and Serbia follow in second and third place, while Belgium and Portugal share fourth place.