Cultural landscape Wachau

The Wachau is a 36 km long breakthrough valley along the Danube. It was formed because the Danube between Emmersdorf and Melk in the west and Stein and Mautern in the east separated the Dunkelsteinerwald from the Waldviertel and thus in some places cut more than 700 m deep into the hummocky mountain landscape of the Bohemian Massif.

In 2000, together with the Melk and Göttweig Abbeys and the Old Town of Krems, it was included in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List as the Wachau Cultural Landscape.