In July 2004, Muskau Park was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (as a joint effort between Poland and Germany) because of its 'utopian' design that incorporates both native plants and the nearby town, and its influence on the development of landscape architecture.

The 17.9 km2 (6.9 sq mi; 4,400 acres) buffer zone around the park encompassed the German town Bad Muskau (Upper Sorbian: Mužakow) in the West and Polish Łęknica (Wjeska, former Lugknitz) in the East.

The founder of the adjacent park was Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785-1871), the author of the influential Remarks on Landscape Gardening and owner of the state country of Muskau from 1811.

Pückler reconstructed the medieval fortress as the "New Castle", the compositional centre of the park, with a network of paths radiating from it and a pleasure ground influenced by the ideas of Humphry Repton, whose son John Adey worked at Muskau from 1822 on.

The next year it was acquired by Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who employed Eduard Petzold, Pückler's disciple and a well-known landscape gardener, to complete his design.