For eight months of the year, deepest winter reigns in the mountains of the Hohe Tauern , and even during the remainder of the year the conditions for plants and animals are extremely hard. With some 1,800 square kilometres, the National Park Hohe Tauern is the largest nature reserve in Central Europe, and covers the last generally untouched part of the Austrian Alps in Carinthia, Salzburg and the Tyrol. The philosophy of protection has also been influenced by man's activities in the alpine region, which go back many centuries - for example, dairy farming above the tree line was only possible in harmony with the laws of nature. Accordingly, the national park has been zoned: Nature Zone (untouched alpine region), Conservation Zone (protection of alpine farming landscape) and Strictly Protected Area (bann on any intervention).

The so called "Tauernfenster" (Tauern Window) in the Central Alps is a geological rarity. Also remarkable in the impressive alpine and glacier landscape: Austria's highest peak, Großglockner, with 2797 metres, and a great number of specialities of alpine flora and fauna. The wide range offered by the national park management and the numerous information centres in the three provinces presents all these treasures in the form of excursions, slide shows and special events, e.g. the action "Children get to know the national park", or alpine hikes. Various educational trails round off the experience of nature.

With the national park laws of Carinthia, Salzburg and the Tyrol, the Hohe Tauern region is no longer under pressure from energy and tourism industry. Thin populations of larch, stone pines, dwarf pines and dwarf juniper, but also the Rock Partridge or Rock Ptarmigan, Raven, Bearded Vulture and Golden Eagle, as well as the Marmot, Blur Hare and Wild Goat will continue to find a habitat on the "roof of Austria"...