Englischer Garten
a large public park in the centre of Munich
The Englischer Garten (German: [ˈɛŋlɪʃɐ ˈɡaʁtn̩], lit. 'English Garden') is a large public park in the centre of Munich, Bavaria, stretching from the city centre to the northeastern city limits. The creation began in 1789, supervised by Sir Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), later Count Rumford (Reichsgraf von Rumford), for Prince Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria. Thompson's successors, Reinhard von Werneck (1757–1842) and Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell (1750–1823), advisers on the project from its beginning, both extended and improved the park.
With an area of 3.7 km2 (1.4 sq mi, 370 ha or 910 acres), the Englischer Garten is one of the world's largest urban public parks. The name refers to its English garden form of informal landscape, a style popular in England from the mid-18th century to the early 19th century and particularly associated with Capability Brown.
History
Creation
When the Elector of Bavaria Maximilian III Joseph, the last ruler from the Bavarian branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty, died childless in 1777, his throne passed to Charles Theodore, count and elector of the Palatinate. The new ruler preferred his existing home in Mannheim on the Rhine to living in Bavaria and tried unsuccessfully to trade his unloved inheritance for the Austrian Netherlands. Understandably, the people of Munich returned his disdain. To offset this unhappy atmosphere, Charles Theodore devoted much attention to improvements in the city. Among others, he created an art gallery in the northern arcades of the Residence's Hofgarten ("Court Garden") and made both the garden and the new gallery open to the public (the former in 1780, the latter in 1781).
The public source identifies “Englischer Garten” as a large public park in the centre of Munich. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Englischer, Garten and large.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q260223. VIAF identifies the subject as 242591114. The Library of Congress control number is sh91002037. Authority coordinates are 48.153, 11.592. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1789, 1753, 1814 and 1757.
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This entry incorporates text from “Englischer Garten” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.