• Lombardy

• Regional Parks

• Po River Basin - Urban Areas

The Park Nature

The territory of Nord Milano Park includes very interesting areas from a naturalistic point of view, despite the limited size of its territory and the great influence of man on it.
The section of Po Plain where Nord Milano Park was established has been used for agricultural purposes since ancient times, as witnessed by the maps of Catasto Teresiano (1722 - 1784). For this reason, the eventual areas where vegetal and animal species of interest could find shelter were mainly represented by watercourses like Seveso and Canale Villoresi.

Further information (Italian text)

Flora

By walking along the paths, among the lime tree or horse chestnut tree rows or by strolling around the several paths crossing the woods, you can admire the colors and smell the fragrances of a lively nature.

(the following links all lead to Italian texts)

The Herbs of the Park

Further info

Fauna

The creation and the development in the years of areas covered with thick woods alternating with large clearings, rows of trees and shrubs, has favored a surprising increase in the presence of animals in the Park: of course, we are not talking about eagles and chamois, but about several bird species, small mammals, insects and amphibians which are interesting and above all rather easy to observe.

(the following links all lead to Italian texts)

• The Park Mammals
• The Park Insects
• The Park Birds
• Other Animals

Further info

Woodlands

After twenty years from the first reforestation activity of Nord Milano Park which took place in 1983, what you can see today is a young but already well-marked park.
On 250 hectares of areas subject to reclamation activities and then given back to nature, today there are almost two hundred thousand high-trunk plants and shrubs of different species.

Mushrooms

The great quantity of trees and shrubs has favored in recent years the growth of several mushrooms, and, especially in September and October, the visitor will have the opportunity to admire an unusual "blooming" of mushrooms of any shape, color, and species.
The most significant feature is represented in the undergrowth by Coprinus disseminatus. If you are patient and careful and decide to visit the Park areas, there will be some surprises.
It is possible to observe over fifty mushroom species in the Park territory. Some of them are very sought-after in cooking (like Coprinus comatus, Agrocybe aegirita, Agaricus campestris, and Rhodopaxillus nudus), others are very dangerous, like Amanite Phalloides or Paxillus involutus, whose poison can be lethal; others must be eaten only after boiling them, like Clitocybe nebularis.

Further info (Italian text)

The Park History

There is a green spot on the map of Milan, where the metropolis merges with its northern hinterland: it is the Parco Nord Milano, established by Regione Lombardia in the 1970s and nowadays in an advanced state of development, bound to become the great green lung of the north of Milan.
The past image is an image of residual agricultural areas waiting to be transformed and scattered with illegal dumps, deposits in the open air, car wreckers, spontaneous vegetable gardens, slums which are more or less concealed among the vegetable gardens, and abandoned industrial plants.
The present image is that of a wide green area, a real metropolitan Park which has been well-planned and structured, even if it is still developing.
In a short time, a marginal and degraded area without any important presence of green could be requalified by involving in this process of environmental and urban recovery the whole metropolitan field.

Today, the 600 hectares of the Park area can be divided into three large area categories: 250 hectares represent the areas where the Park is ready and equipped to welcome visitors.
About 200 hectares are still not available, that is areas of public use or of consolidated and unmodifiable private buildings, the area included in the Piano Territoriale di Coordinamento (about 20 ha), the Bassini hospital, the School Center, Brusuglio and Bruzzano cemeteries, two municipal sport centers, some football grounds managed by sport associations, some private sport equipment; they also include Villa Manzoni, its historical park, and the Bresso airport area.
The last portion of legally bound areas includes the areas under a "stand-by" status, likely to be transformed into green areas. For some of them, the purchase and transformation stage have already been scheduled and should take place in the short term. They are either important agricultural areas which could ensure an efficient link between the paths for cyclists and pedestrians, or else degraded areas whose recovery is urgent. Other areas are not likely to be touched neither in the short nor in the long term by these programs: it is the case of compact agricultural areas which are already compatible with the Park and whose agricultural exploitation is regarded as valuable and worth of preservation.
The idea of establishing a Park in the most industrialized area of the most industrialized metropolis in Italy dates back to the year 1967 when the assembly of the Mayors of P.I.M. (Centro Studi Piano Intercomunale Milanese), but it began to become real in 1970, when Consorzio Parco Nord Milano was established after a prefect decree which was later enforced in 1973; in 1975 the Park was recognized by Regione Lombardia as regional Park.
The first decade (1973-82) was dedicated to the urban planning of the territory and to the beginning of the Park planning. Between 1980-81 the first big intervention was carried out: the purchase of areas from Breda Finanziaria, whose extension reached 120 ha (one fifth of the bound area).

The works started in 1983, when a first portion of the former Breda area went under reforestation, according to the methodology of urban reforestation, with the planting of about 10,000 seedlings.
With this first intervention the process of systematic and gradual formation of the "vegetable system Parco Nord" - involving today about 250 hectares of green areas - began: in these areas there are woods, clearings, tree rows, shrub maquis, vegetable barriers, hedges, small stretches of water which we might say are Nord Milano Park, a Park essentially made with meadows, trees and woods, and water.

If you compare the current Park to the one existing only 10 years ago, when thousands of thin seedlings had already been planted, the difference is really surprising.
The seedlings have become a wood (and tree rows, hedges, clearings) and the past green surface is now very large. At that time the Park landscape was unspecified, just visible, and difficult to recognize; today is clear, with its strong and qualifying signs. There were not gangways for cyclists and pedestrians along the great urban arteries, and there were a few dirt paths, and no equipment. Today the path and equipment systems are rich and well-articulated, with further and rapid expansions scheduled in the short term.

If we think about the past, Nord Milano Park is above all a challenge which has been won: as far as the park issue is concerned, in a country where the only great parks are the ones we have inherited from the past centuries, here is a big and completely new park, which you can see and judge not from a plan, but going through it, on foot or by bike.
The most important result of the work done lies in the direct enjoyment of the Park by the visitors: from a few hundred visitors in the 80s (to the extent that someone had blamed us to have built a Park for "radical chic people"), up to the thousand of people visiting it today, a mass fruition, particularly intense on Sundays during the beautiful season.

Further information (Italian text)