The landscape park of the eccentric Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Pückler-Muskau in Bad Muskau, known on the Polish side as the Mużakowski Park in Łęknica, is one of the most outstanding achievements in European landscape architecture of the 19th century.

The park extends along both sides of the border river Lusatian Neisse, near the Łęknica – Bad Muskau border crossing. On the German side lies the smaller but more urbanised portion of the park covering an area of 200 ha while the Polish shore hosts 800 ha.

On May 1st of 1815, 30 year old Hermann von Pückler, owner of Muskau estates for four years, announced in an open letter to the citizens of the city of Muskau that he wishes to create a naturalistic park in the scenic area where the Neisse cuts through the terminal moraine called the Łuk Mużakowa (German: Muskauer Faltenbogen). The sole fact that the magnate informed his subjects of his plans, before proceeding, proved his extraordinary personality.

Herman von Pückler's park was designed to illustrate an ideal connection between nature, culture, technique and spirit.

In the spring of 1817, the planting of 800,000 trees and 42,000 bushes begins, the route of the Neisse is changed and... an entire riverside village was moved because it interfered with the concept of the park. In order to raise funds for the garden works, the prince marries an older and rich woman only to formally divorce her a few years later to look for another fortune to finance the garden's maintenance. His search ended without success.

Due to the lack of financial backing not all of the count's plans – and since 1822, with an extra sum of 4000 "Prince von Pückler-Muskau's" Thalers– were realized. As a novelty enthusiast and eccentric, he loudly expressed his democratic sympathies and published books under his own name. His most significant title is "Andeutungen über Landschaftsgärtnerei" ("Thoughts on Landscape Gardening"), frolm 1834, a handbook highly valued everywhere outside Prussia. The prince travelled much and his travel journals, read with flushed faces, even by a master of the pen like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe himself, are a valuable heritage of German literature.