While the lake earned the nickname "Pearl of the Alps" due to its increasing popularity among tourists, tourism had become excessive as of 2020, with 17,000 people visiting the area on a single summer day.

The name of the lake is attested in 1296 as Hünz an den Se, in 1330 as Praxersee, in 1400 as See in Prags, in 1620 as Pragsersee and in 1885 as Pragser Wildsee; the appellation of the wild is therefore nineteenth-century, and perhaps to be connected to mountaineering which in that period began to become a mass phenomenon.

The lake lies at the foot of the imposing rock face of the Seekofel (Italian Croda del Becco, Ladin Sass dla Porta 2,810 m) and is located within the Fanes - Sennes - Prags nature park.

In the summer of 2010, on the shores of Pragser Wildsee, the Italian television series "Un passo dal cielo" was shot, broadcast by Rai 1 since 2011, focusing on the life of a team commander of the Forestry Corps of the autonomous province of Bolzano from Innichen.

Thanks to the popularity of the 2011 Italian TV series Un passo dal cielo, the Pragser Wildsee became one of the most visited places in the region Trentino-South Tyrol as it started to attract countless travel bloggers, influencers and professional photographers.

Since these excessive numbers are "not good for the natural environment in the long term", the region decided to restrict access for tourists per the Heimatverband Südtirol,[3] which made it necessary to establish rules, to route them.