The Hallstatt-Dachstein alpine scenery, which is in the Salzkammergut and, by extension, the Eastern Alps, is very dramatic to look at. Huge mountains rise quickly from narrow valleys. It has been wealthy since the Middle Ages thanks to salt mining, especially in the town of Hallstatt, whose name comes from the word for “salt settlement” and shows what its main job was.

In the area, salt was being made in a planned way as early as the Middle Bronze Age, in the late 2nd millennium BC, when natural brine was collected in jars and dried out. Underground salt mining started at the end of the late Bronze Age and picked up again in the 8th century BC. At that time, historical evidence showed a thriving, stratified, and highly organized Iron Age society with trade links all over Europe. This society is now known as the Hallstatt Culture. In Roman times, salt mining went on, and it started up again in the 1400s. big amounts of wood for the mines and to evaporate the salt came from the big upland forests, which were directly controlled and managed by the Austrian Crown starting in the 1600s. It was rebuilt in the late Baroque style after a fire in 1750 destroyed the wooden houses that made up the town! 

In prehistoric times, sheep and cattle used the higher pastures for summer grazing as part of a process called transhumance. Today, communities in the valley still have rights to certain grazing areas. The beauty of the alpine landscape was “discovered” in the early 1800s by writers like Adalbert Stifler (novelist) and Franz Grillparzer (dramatic poet), as well as by most of the best Biedermeier school paintings. When they left, tourists came, which led to the building of hotels and brine baths for tourists. 
The landscape is unique because it is full of complex natural forces that are very interesting to scientists. It has also been an important part of human history, as shown by the effects of farmer-miners over thousands of years, how mining has changed the mountain’s interior, and the artists and writers who have written about its harmony and beauty.