39 Largest Urban Parks.
How many have you visited?

Unique fact: At 6,475 hectares (16,000 acres), South Mountain is the largest municipal park in the United States and one of the largest in the world. The park has 51 miles of trails for hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians, and the Dobbins Lookout summit gives a 360° view of the entire Phoenix metropolitan area. Shaman petroglyphs, some over a thousand years old, are scattered across the park's rock faces.

Why visit: Hike the Hidden Valley trail to find the natural rock tunnel and "Fat Man's Pass," a slot you have to slip through sideways. Sunrise at Dobbins Lookout is the move, the Sonoran Desert lights up gold and the city below looks like a circuit board. Free entry, no permits needed.

Unique fact: At 3,953 hectares, Tijuca is one of the largest urban forests in the world, and entirely hand-planted. The original Atlantic rainforest was clear-cut for coffee plantations in the 1700s; Major Manuel Gomes Archer was tasked with replanting the slopes in 1861 and finished by 1874. Six laborers planted 100,000 trees by hand in 13 years. Christ the Redeemer sits inside this park.

Why visit: Hike Pico da Tijuca for the highest viewpoint in the city (1,022 m), visit the Cascatinha Taunay waterfall, and combine the trip with the Christ the Redeemer cog train. Capuchin monkeys, toucans, and the occasional sloth are visible from the trails, all inside a city of 6 million.

Unique fact: Frankfurt's 4,800-hectare city forest is the largest urban forest in Germany and one of the largest in Europe, bigger than Manhattan. It's been a continuously protected woodland since 1372, when the Emperor Charles IV granted Frankfurt the right to use the forest as a "Reichsforst." Today it's crisscrossed by 450 km of paths and contains a dozen lakes.

Why visit: Rent a bike at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, ride the Niddapark loop, and take the cable-pulled ferry across the Main from Schwanheim. The Goetheturm observation tower at the eastern edge gives a city panorama. End at one of the forest pubs (Apfelweinwirtschaften) like Zur Goldenen Krone for Frankfurt cider and Handkäs mit Musik.

Unique fact: Central Park gets 42 million visitors per year, more than any other urban park in the world. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1858, every hill, rock outcrop, water body, and meadow is artificial, the entire 341-hectare site was built by hand over 15 years using 10 million wagonloads of dirt and 270 tons of gunpowder for blasting bedrock. Olmsted called it "a single work of art."

Why visit: Skip the carriage rides. Walk the full 6-mile loop counterclockwise from Columbus Circle, detour through Strawberry Fields, the Bethesda Terrace and the Bow Bridge, and end at the Conservatory Garden in the northeast corner, the only formal garden in the park, and the least-touristed by an order of magnitude.

Unique fact: Hyde Park has been royal land since 1536, when Henry VIII seized it from Westminster Abbey for use as his personal hunting ground. It opened to the public in 1637 and has hosted the Great Exhibition (1851), the Crystal Palace, and Speakers' Corner, the world's most famous spot for free public speech, in continuous use since 1872. The Serpentine Lake at its centre was created in 1730 by damming the Westbourne river.

Why visit: Swim in the Serpentine (yes, you can, the lido is open year-round and there's a Christmas Day swim every year), watch a Sunday morning at Speakers' Corner, and walk west into Kensington Gardens for the Albert Memorial and the Italian Gardens. Combined with Kensington Gardens, the park is over 250 hectares.

Unique fact: At 707 hectares, Phoenix Park is the largest enclosed public park in any European capital city and roughly twice the size of Central Park. It's home to a wild herd of 600+ fallow deer that have lived here since 1662, the Áras an Uachtaráin (the Irish President's residence), Dublin Zoo, and the Wellington Monument, the tallest obelisk in Europe at 62 m.

Why visit: Walk from the Parkgate Street entrance to the Wellington Monument, then push deeper into the park to see the Phoenix Monument, the Papal Cross (where Pope John Paul II said Mass for 1.25 million people in 1979), and the deer herd grazing in the Fifteen Acres meadow. Combine with a tour of the Guinness Storehouse, the brewery is right next to the eastern gate.

Unique fact: Stanley Park is older than the city of Vancouver itself, the federal government set it aside as a military reserve in 1860, before British Columbia even joined Canada. It opened as a public park in 1888 with the inaugural city government's first official act. The 405-hectare peninsula contains the largest single stand of giant Douglas firs in any North American city.

Why visit: Cycle or roller-blade the 8.8 km Seawall around the entire perimeter, the views of downtown, the North Shore Mountains, and Lions Gate Bridge are best at golden hour. Stop at the Brockton Point totem pole collection, the Hollow Tree, and Third Beach for sunset over English Bay.

Unique fact: At 845 hectares, the Bois de Boulogne is 2.5 times the size of Central Park, and that's just one of two giant parks at Paris's edges (the other, Bois de Vincennes, is even larger at 995 ha). Originally part of the Forest of Rouvray and a royal hunting ground, it was redesigned as a public park by Napoleon III in 1852 along the lines of London's Hyde Park.

Why visit: Rent a rowboat on Lac Inférieur, visit the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Frank Gehry's 2014 Louis Vuitton museum is hidden inside the park's northern half), see the Parc de Bagatelle rose garden, and ride the small steam train at the Jardin d'Acclimatation children's park. Day-tickets to Roland-Garros tennis grounds are right next to the park.