Peacock Island

The Peacock Island, originally named Kaninchenwerder (Rabbit Island) because of the rabbit breeding of Friedrich Wilhelm I, is today one of the most popular destinations for many Berliners and visitors from all over the world.

The island, which is a protected nature reserve, belongs to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg. Since 1990, it has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, along with the palaces and parks of Sanssouci in Potsdam and Glienicke in Berlin.

Originally, Peacock Island consisted of two parts, a larger southern island and a smaller northern island. Between 1821 and 1834, it was redesigned according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné into a landscape park based on the English model, with valuable botanical plants, hidden animal enclosures and menageries for exotic animals.

Lenne's concept provided for the preservation of the old tree population for large parts of the island. A newly created network of paths and the visual axes that have been preserved to this day are the garden architect's main interventions in the nature of the island.

Peacock Island is embedded in a historic, multi-layered cultural landscape and has been able to maintain its fairytale character over the centuries.

Much of the island is forest and meadowland with a remarkable stand of oak trees, some of which are several hundred years old. The nature and monument conservation is oriented to the time around 1835, the heyday of the island.

With a ferry, visitors can cross to the island, whose main attraction are the free-roaming peacocks.