The Most Beautiful Nature Sanctuaries Seen on Screen in Europe
5 places in 3 countries · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful nature sanctuaries seen on screen in Europe are Plitvice Lakes National Park (Croatia), Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park (Spain) and Adršpach-Teplice Rocks (Czech Republic). The list covers 5 nature sanctuaries seen on screen in 3 countries. Spain has the most, with 3. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Film crews come to Europe's protected landscapes when a story needs somewhere that looks untouched or not quite of this world. The same qualities that earn these places protection, volcanic deserts, waterfalls over travertine, labyrinths of eroded sandstone, make them ideal stand-ins for the American West, ancient myth or a fantasy kingdom. Protection keeps the scenery free of modern clutter, which is exactly what a camera needs.
Plitvice Lakes, in Croatia, is a chain of terraced lakes joined by travertine barriers and waterfalls; in the 1960s it doubled as the Wild West in the Karl May westerns, among them Treasure of the Silver Lake. In Andalusia, the volcanic coast of Cabo de Gata-Níjar has served many productions, and its Mónsul beach appears in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
In the Czech Republic, the Adršpach-Teplice Rocks, a vast field of sandstone towers and narrow passages, provided scenes for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Canary Islands add two volcanic parks: Teide National Park on Tenerife, whose lava fields have appeared in One Million Years B.C. and Clash of the Titans, and Timanfaya on Lanzarote, a landscape of craters and black lava formed by eruptions in the eighteenth century that looks more like another planet than part of Europe.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plitvice Lakes National Park | National park | Croatia | ✓ |
| 2 | Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park | Nature reserve | Spain | |
| 3 | Adršpach-Teplice Rocks | Rock formation | Czech Republic | |
| 4 | Teide National Park | National park | Spain | ✓ |
| 5 | Timanfaya National Park | National park | Spain |
01 Plitvice Lakes National Park
Nacionalni park Plitvička jezera
Croatia44.880° N 15.616° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Hobbyfotography from Pixabay The barriers that create Plitvice's sixteen terraced lakes are, in a very real sense, alive — or at least built by living things. As water flows over limestone, it releases dissolved carbon dioxide, which shifts the water's chemistry so that calcium carbonate starts crystallising out of solution. Left alone, that process would just leave mineral crusts.
Did you know? Several Winnetou westerns based on Karl May's novels were filmed here between 1962 and 1968.
02 Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park
Parque natural del Cabo de Gata-Níjar
Spain · 36.5 km from Almería36.900° N 2.030° W
- UNESCO Global Geopark
- biosphere reserve
Image by WildFox from Pixabay Cabo de Gata-Níjar is the wild south-eastern corner of Spain: a coast of dark volcanic headlands, pale coves and desert light that somehow escaped the concrete that lines most of the Mediterranean. It was declared Andalusia's first combined land-and-sea natural park in December 1987, and it remains the largest protected coastal area in the region.
03 Adršpach-Teplice Rocks
Czech Republic50.611° N 16.115° E
Lestat (Jan Mehlich) · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Adršpach-Teplice Rocks in north-eastern Bohemia are the largest rock city in Central Europe: a labyrinth of sandstone towers, walls and gorges formed when a continuous plateau of sandstone, laid down in a Cretaceous sea, was split by tectonic movement and then carved by water, frost and wind.
Did you know? In 1824 a forest fire smouldered among the rocks for several weeks and destroyed the entire forest around the rock city.
04 Teide National Park
Parque Nacional del Teide
Spain28.276° N 16.643° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Barni1 from Pixabay Teide National Park covers the high heart of Tenerife: a vast volcanic caldera, Las Cañadas, and the cone of Teide rising out of it to 3,718 metres, the highest point in Spain. Measured from the ocean floor, Teide is one of the tallest volcanoes on the planet, and together with its neighbour Pico Viejo it forms the only pair of peaks in the Canaries above 3,000 metres.
05 Timanfaya National Park
Parque Nacional de Timanfaya
Spain · 24.1 km from Arrecife29.014° N 13.780° W
Image by neufal54 from Pixabay On the night of 1 September 1730 the ground opened in the south-west of Lanzarote, and it did not settle again for almost six years. The eruptions that followed, among the longest and largest ever witnessed in the Canary Islands, poured lava and ash over a fertile farming district, buried villages and reshaped a large part of the island before they died away in April 1736. A short new eruption followed in 1824.
Did you know? The eruptions that created much of Timanfaya lasted from September 1730 to April 1736.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful nature sanctuaries seen on screen in Europe?
- On our list, Plitvice Lakes National Park (Croatia) ranks first, followed by Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park (Spain) and Adršpach-Teplice Rocks (Czech Republic).
- Which country has the most nature sanctuaries seen on screen in Europe?
- In our collection, the most come from Spain (3), Croatia (1) and the Czech Republic (1).
- Which films were shot at Plitvice Lakes?
- Plitvice was a main location for the 1960s Karl May westerns, including Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962). The lakes and waterfalls stood in for the American frontier.
- Which films were made in Teide National Park?
- Its volcanic scenery appears in One Million Years B.C. (1966), Clash of the Titans (2010) and Wrath of the Titans (2012).
- What formed the landscape of Timanfaya?
- A long series of eruptions on Lanzarote between 1730 and 1736, followed by another in 1824, buried a large part of the island under lava and ash. The craters and lava fields from those eruptions make up the park.
- How many nature sanctuaries seen on screen are on this list in Europe?
- The list covers 5 nature sanctuaries seen on screen in 3 countries. Spain has the most, with 3.