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　 　 The Dachstein is characterized by its massif form, the extensive and highly karstic plateau, high, often sheer, precipices, and the exceptionally wide glaciation. The landscape is traversed by the U-shaped valley of the Traun river and the fjordlike Hallstattersee, with the market town of Hallstatt wedged between the mountain and the south-western shore of the lake. Favoured by its location, the core of the town is a unique example of the Gothic miners’ Settlemment with its basic structures still discemible and Late Baroque additions made after the great fire of 1750. Owing to its high density of historic monuments, Hallstatt is an urban monument of the highest order. The magnificent scenery has allowed little space for the architectural evolution of human settlement. The attempt to make the optimum use of the space available can clearly be seen within the basically Gothic core of the settlement and its Baroque additions, whose prominent silhouette and almost complete original ensemble have been preserved to the present day. The recognition that this was a unique landscape in its traditional context led to any interventions, such as the construction of a road along the lake-shore, being rejected from early in the 1960s and appropriate alternatives being encouraged in order to preserve the historic material.

The cultural landscape of the Hallstatt-Dachstein region boasts a continuing organic evolution covering 2500 years. From the every beginning its history has been linked primarily with the economic history of salt extraction. Salt mining has always determined every aspect of life, as well as the architectural and artistic material evidence. Salt production on a major scale can be traced in Hallstatt back to the Middle Bronze Age in the mid 2nd millennium BC.

The rich and variegated flora and fauna of the Hallstatt-Dachstein region draws its support from a changing mountain landscape that reaches up to the snow-belt, thus providing many ecological niches, both large and small. It is remarkable for a mountain region to have so many rare and endangered plant species that are on the Red Lists. The fact that many stretches of woodland in inaccessible locations are almost untouched by humans is worthy of special mention. Owing to the low level of development and the enclosed character of the region, these conservation areas are also of major importance for those species that are very sensitive to human interference.

The significance of the glaciated Dachstein mountain, nearly 3000m high, lies in the great density of caves and the three important sites designed to explain the origin and formation of caves to the general public, each representing a different speleological type.