Some parts of the range on the western and southern slopes are karstified and bare of trees, covered by calcareous grassland.: The area shaped by numerous sandstone quarries today is the site of a geopark, comprising the Kyffhäuser Monument, the Barbarossa Cave near Rottleben, the Kaiserpfalz at Tilleda, and the Bilzingsleben Paleolithic site. The Schlachtberg hill on the southeastern rim near Bad Frankenhausen was the site of the decisive Battle of Frankenhausen during the German Peasants' War in 1525, commemorated in the monumental Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany by Werner Tübke.