Photo:1
Photo:2
Photo:3
Photo:4
Photo:1 Photo:2 Photo:3 Photo:4 |
| Location | |
| 3>
Lower Saxony has a natural boundary in the north in the North Sea and the lower and middle reaches of the River Elbe, although parts of the city of Hamburg lie south of the Elbe. The state and city of Bremen is an enclave entirely surrounded by Lower Saxony. The Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region is a cooperative body for the enclave area. To the southeast the state border runs through the Harz, low mountains that are part of the German Central Uplands. The northeast and west of the state – which form roughly three-quarters of its land area – belong to the North German Plain, while the south is in the Lower Saxon Hills, including the Weser Uplands, Leine Uplands, Schaumburg Land, Brunswick Land, Untereichsfeld, Elm and Lappwald. In northeast Lower Saxony is Lüneburg Heath. The heath is dominated by the poor sandy soils of the geest, whilst in the central east and southeast in the loess börde zone there are productive soils with high natural fertility. Under these conditions—with loam and sand-containing soils—the land is well-developed agriculturally. In the west lie the County of Bentheim, Osnabrück Land, Emsland, Oldenburg Land, Ammerland, Oldenburg Münsterland and – on the coast – East Frisia.
The state is dominated by several large rivers running northwards through the state: the Ems, Weser, Aller and Elbe.
The highest mountain in Lower Saxony is the Wurmberg (971 m) in the Harz. For other significant elevations see: List of mountains and hills in Lower Saxony. Most of the mountains and hills are found in the southeastern part of the state. The lowest point in the state, at about 2.5 metres below sea level, is a depression near Freepsum in East Frisia.
The state's economy, population and infrastructure are centred on the cities and towns of Hanover, Stadthagen, Celle, Brunswick, Wolfsburg, Hildesheim and Salzgitter. Together with Göttingen in southern Lower Saxony, they form the core of the Hanover-Brunswick-Göttingen-Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region.
[edit] Tags:German,North Sea,Hamburg,Bremen,Hanover,Brunswick,Lüneburg,Osnabrück,Oldenburg,Göttingen,East Frisia,Emsland,German Central Uplands,Weser Uplands,Harz,Lower Saxon Hills,Wolfsburg,Salzgitter,Hildesheim,Lüneburg Heath,Elbe,River Elbe,Enclave,Bremen/oldenburg Metropolitan Region,Central Uplands,North German Plain,Leine Uplands,Schaumburg Land,Brunswick Land,Untereichsfeld,Elm,Lappwald,Geest,Loess ,Loam,Sand,Agriculturally,County Of Bentheim,Osnabrück Land,Oldenburg Land,Ammerland,Oldenburg Münsterland,Ems,Weser,Aller,Freepsum,Hanover-brunswick-göttingen-wolfsburg Metropolitan Region,Eichsfeld,Celle,Schaumburg, | |
| General | |
| 4>
Lower Saxony has clear regional divisions that manifest themselves both geographically as well as historically and culturally. In the regions that used to be independent, especially the heartlands of the former states of Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe, there is a marked local regional awareness. By contrast, the areas surrounding the Hanseatic cities of Bremen and Hamburg are much more oriented towards those centres.
[edit] Tags:States,Schaumburg-lippe,Artland, | |
| List of regions | |
| 4>
Sometimes there are overlaps and transition areas between the various regions of Lower Saxony. Several of the regions listed here are part of other, larger regions, that are also included in the list.
Altes Land
Ammerland
Artland
County of Bentheim
Bramgau
Brunswick Land (Braunschweiger Land)
Calenberg Land
Eastphalia
East Frisia
Eichsfeld
Elbe-Weser Triangle
Emsland
Grönegau
Land Hadeln
Land Wursten
Hanover
Harz Mountains
Hildesheim Börde
Hümmling
Kehdingen
Leine Uplands
Lüneburg Heath
Middle Weser Region
Oldenburg Land
Oldenburg Münsterland
Osnabrück Land
Schaumburg Land
Solling
South Lower Saxony
Wendland
Weser Uplands
Wesermarsch
Wümme Depression
Just under 20% of the land area of Lower Saxony is designated as nature parks, i.e.: Dümmer, Elbhöhen-Wendland, Elm-Lappwald, Harz, Lüneburger Heide, Münden, Terra.vita, Solling-Vogler, Lake Steinhude, Südheide, Weser Uplands, Wildeshausen Geest, Bourtanger Moor-Bargerveen.[2]
[edit] Tags:Altes Land,Bramgau,Calenberg Land,Eastphalia,Elbe-weser Triangle,Grönegau,Land Hadeln,Land Wursten,Harz Mountains,Hildesheim Börde,Hümmling,Kehdingen,Middle Weser Region,Solling,Wendland,Wesermarsch,Wümme Depression,Dümmer,Elbhöhen-wendland,Elm-lappwald,Lüneburger Heide,Münden,Terra.vita,Solling-vogler,Lake Steinhude,Südheide,Wildeshausen Geest,Bourtanger Moor-bargerveen, | |
| Climate | |
| 3>
Lower Saxony falls climatically into the north temperate zone of central Europe that is affected by prevailing Westerlies and is located in a transition zone between the maritime climate of Western Europe and the continental climate of Eastern Europe. This transition is clearly noticeable within the state: whilst the northwest experiences an Atlantic (North Sea coastal) to Sub-Atlantic climate, with comparatively low variations in temperature during the course of the year and a surplus water budget, the climate towards the southeast is increasingly affected by the Continent. This is clearly shown by greater temperature variations between the summer and winter halves of the year and in lower and more variable amounts of precipitation across the year. This sub-continental effect is most sharply seen in the Wendland, in the Weser Uplands (Hamelin to Göttingen) and in the area of Helmstedt. The highest levels of precipitation are experienced in the Harz because the Lower Saxon part forms the windward side of this mountain range against which orographic rain falls. The average annual temperature is 8 °C (7.5 °C in the Altes Land and 8.5 °C in the district of Cloppenburg).
[edit] Tags:North Temperate Zone,Westerlies,Maritime Climate,Western Europe,Continental Climate,Eastern Europe,Windward Side,Cloppenburg,Helmstedt, | |
| Neighbouring states | |
| 3>
States bordering on Lower Saxony are Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. No other German state has so many neighbours.
Lower Saxony also has a border with the Dutch provinces of Overijssel, Drenthe and Groningen as well as part of the German North Sea coast.
[edit] Tags:Schleswig-holstein,Mecklenburg-vorpommern,Brandenburg,Saxony-anhalt,Thuringia,Hesse,North Rhine-westphalia,Dutch,Provinces,Overijssel,Drenthe,Groningen, | |
| Administration | |
| 2>
Hanover
Brunswick
Lüneburg
Göttingen
Oldenburg
Lower Saxony is divided into 38 districts (Landkreise or simply Kreise):
Ammerland
Aurich (includes Juist, Norderney and Baltrum)
County of Bentheim (Grafschaft Bentheim)
Celle
Cloppenburg
Cuxhaven
Diepholz
Emsland
Friesland (includes Wangerooge)
Gifhorn
Goslar
Göttingen
Hamelin-Pyrmont (Hameln-Pyrmont)
Hanover (Hannover)
Harburg
Heidekreis
Helmstedt
Hildesheim
Holzminden
Leer (includes Borkum)
Lüchow-Dannenberg
Lüneburg
Nienburg
Northeim
Oldenburg
Osnabrück
Osterholz
Osterode
Peine
Rotenburg (Wümme)
Schaumburg
Stade
Uelzen
Vechta
Verden
Wesermarsch
Wittmund (includes Langeoog and Spiekeroog)
Wolfenbüttel
Furthermore there are ten urban districts:
Brunswick
Delmenhorst
Emden
Göttingen ¹
Hanover ²
Oldenburg
Osnabrück
Salzgitter
Wilhelmshaven
Wolfsburg
¹ following the "Göttingen Law" of January 1, 1964, the town of Göttingen is incorporated into the district (Landkreis) of Göttingen, but the rules on urban districts still apply, as long as no other rules exist.
² following the "Law on the region of Hanover", Hanover counts since November 1, 2001 as an urban district as long as no other rules apply.
[edit] Tags:Aurich,Juist,Norderney,Baltrum,Cuxhaven,Diepholz,Friesland,Wangerooge,Gifhorn,Goslar,Hamelin-pyrmont, | |
| Regional history prior to foundation of Lower Saxony | |
| 3>
The Duchy of Saxony around 1000
Imperial circles at the start of the 16th century. In red: the Lower Saxon Circle, in light brown: the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle
Kingdom of Hanover (1815–1866), Duchy of Brunswick, Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe in the 19th century
The name of Saxony derives from that of the Germanic tribe of the Saxons. Before the late medieval period, there was a single Duchy of Saxony. The term "Lower Saxony" was used[year needed] after the dissolution of the stem duchy the late 13th century to disambiguate the parts of the former duchy ruled by the House of Welf from the Electorate of Saxony on one hand, and from the Duchy of Westphalia on the other.
[edit] Tags:Kingdom Of Hanover, | |
| Period to the Congress of Vienna (1814/1815) | |
| 4>
The name and coat of arms of the present state go back to the Germanic tribe of Saxons. During the Migration Period some of the Saxon peoples left their homelands in Holstein about the 3rd century and pushed southwards over the Elbe, where they expanded into the sparsely populated regions in the rest of the lowlands, in the present-day Northwest Germany and the northeastern part of what is now the Netherlands. From about the 7th century the Saxons had occupied a settlement area that roughly corresponds to the present state of Lower Saxony, of Westphalia and a number of areas to the east, for example, in what is now west and north Saxony-Anhalt. The land of the Saxons was divided into about 60 Gaue. The Frisians had not moved into this region; for centuries they preserved their independence in the most northwesterly region of the present-day Lower Saxon territory. The original language of the folk in the area of Old Saxony was West Low Saxon, one of the varieties of language in the Low German dialect group.
The establishment of permanent boundaries between what later became Lower Saxony and Westphalia began in the 12th century. In 1260, in a treaty between the Archbishopric of Cologne and the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg the lands claimed by the two territories were separated from each other.[3] The border ran along the Weser to a point north of Nienburg. The northern part of the Weser-Ems region was placed under the rule of Brunswick-Lüneburg.
The word Niedersachsen was first used before 1300 in a Dutch rhyming chronicle (Reimchronik). From the 14th century it referred to the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg (as opposed to Saxe-Wittenberg).[4] On the creation of the imperial circles in 1500, a Lower Saxon Circle was distinguished from a Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle. The latter included the following territories that, in whole or in part, belong today to the state of Lower Saxony: the Bishopric of Osnabrück, the Bishopric of Münster, the County of Bentheim, the County of Hoya, the Principality of East Frisia, the Principality of Verden, the County of Diepholz, the County of Oldenburg, the County of Schaumburg and the County of Spiegelberg. At the same time a distinction was made with the eastern part of the old Saxon lands from the central German principalities later called Upper Saxony for dynastic reasons. (see also → Electorate of Saxony, History of Saxony).
The close historical link of the domains of the Lower Saxon Circle now in modern Lower Saxony survived for centuries especially from a dynastic point of view. The majority of historic territories whose land now lies within Lower Saxony were sub-principalities of the medieval, Welf estates of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. All the Welf princes called themselves dukes "of Brunswick and Lüneburg" despite often ruling parts of a duchy that was forever being divided and reunited as various Welf lines multiplied or died out.
[edit] Tags:Germany,Low German,Netherlands, | |
| To the end of the Second World War | |
| 4>
Over the course of time two great principalities were left to the east of the Weser: the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick (after 1866 Hanover became a Prussian province; after 1919 Brunswick became a free state). Historically a close tie exists between the royal house of Hanover (Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg) to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a result of their personal union in the 18th century.
West of the River Hunte a "de-Westphalianising process" began in 1815:[5] After the Congress of Vienna the territories of the later administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke) of Osnabrück and Aurich transferred to the Kingdom of Hanover. Until 1946, the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe retained their stately authority. Nevertheless the entire Weser-Ems region (including the city of Bremen) were grouped in 1920 into a Lower Saxon Constituency Association (Wahlkreisverband IX (Niedersachsen)). This indicates that at that time the western administrations of the Prussian Province of Hanover and the state of Oldenburg were perceived as being "Lower Saxon".
The forerunners of today's state of Lower Saxony were lands that were geographically and, to some extent, institutionally interrelated from very early on. The County of Schaumburg (not to be confused with the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe) around the towns of Rinteln and Hessisch Oldendorf did indeed belong to the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau until 1932, a province that also included large parts of the present state of Hesse, including the cities of Kassel, Wiesbaden and Frankfurt am Main; but in 1932, however, the County of Schaumburg became part of the Prussian Province of Hanover. Also before 1945, namely 1937, the city of Cuxhaven has been fully integrated into the Prussian Province of Hanover by the Greater Hamburg Act, so that in 1946, when the state of Lower Saxony was founded, only four states needed to be merged. With the exception of Bremen and the areas that were ceded to the Soviet Occupation Zone in 1945, all those areas allocated to the new state of Lower Saxony in 1946, had already been merged into the "Constituency Association of Lower Saxony" in 1920.
In a lecture on 14 September 2007, Dietmar von Reeken described the emergence of a "Lower Saxony consciousness" in the 19th century, the geographical basis of which was used to invent a territorial construct: the resulting local heritage societies (Heimatvereine) and their associated magazines routinely used the terms "Lower Saxony" or "Lower Saxon" in their names. At the end of the 1920s in the context of discussions about a reform of the Reich and promoted by the expanding local heritage movement (Heimatbewegung), a twenty-five year conflict started between "Lower Saxony" and "Westphalia". The supporters of this dispute were administrative officials and politicians, but regionally focussed scientists of various disciplines were supposed to have fuelled the arguments. In the 1930s, a real Lower Saxony did not yet exist, but there was a plethora of institutions that would have called themselves "Lower Saxon". The motives and arguments in the disputes between "Lower Saxony" and "Westphalia" were very similar on both sides: economic interests, political aims, cultural interests and historical aspects.[6]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Post World War II | |
| 4>
After the Second World War most of Northwest Germany lay within the British Zone of Occupation. On 23 August 1946, the British Military Government issued Regulation No. 46 "Concerning the dissolution of the provinces of the former state of Prussia in the British Zone and their reformation as independent states", which initially established the State of Hanover on the territory of the former Prussian Province of Hanover. Its minister president, Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf, had already suggested in June 1945 the formation of a state of Lower Saxony, that was to include the largest possible region in the middle of the British Zone. In addition to the regions that actually became Lower Saxony subsequently, Kopf asked, in a in memorandum dated April 1946, for the inclusion of the former Prussian district of Minden-Ravensberg (i.e. the Westphalian city of Bielefeld as well as the Westphalian districts of Minden, Lübbecke, Bielefeld, Herford and Halle), the district of Tecklenburg and the state of Lippe.[7] Kopf's plan was ultimately based on a draft for the reform of the German Empire from the late 1920s by Georg Schnath and Kurt Brüning. The strong Welf connotations of this draft, according to Thomas Vogtherr, did not simplify the development of a Lower Saxon identity after 1946.[8]
An alternative model, proposed by politicians in Oldenburg and Brunswick, envisaged the foundation of the independent state of "Weser-Ems", that would be formed from the state of Oldenburg, the Hanseatic City of Bremen and the administrative regions of Aurich and Osnabrück. Several representatives of the state of Oldenburg even demanded the inclusion of the Hanoverian districts of Diepholz, Syke, Osterholz-Scharmbeck and Wesermünde in the postulated state of "Weser-Ems". Likewise an enlarged State of Brunswick was proposed in the southeast to include the Regierungsbezirk of Hildesheim and the district of Gifhorn. Had this plan come to fruition, the territory of the present Lower Saxony would have consisted of three states of roughly equal size.
The district council of Vechta protested on 12 June 1946 against being incorporated into the metropolitan area of Hanover (Großraum Hannover). If the State of Oldenburg was to be dissolved, Vechta District would much rather be included in the Westphalian region.[9] Particularly in the districts where there was a political Catholicism the notion was widespread, that Oldenburg Münsterland and the Regierungsbezirk of Osnabrück should be part of a newly formed State of Westphalia.[10]
Since the foundation of the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hanover on 23 August 1946 the northern and eastern border of North Rhine-Westphalia has largely been identical with that of the Prussian Province of Westphalia. Only the Free State of Lippe was not incorporated into North Rhine-Westphalia until January 1947. With that the majority of the regions left of the Upper Weser became North Rhine-Westphalian.
In the end, at the meeting of the Zone Advisory Board on 20 September 1946, Kopf's proposal with regard to the division of the British occupation zone into three large states proved to be capable of gaining a majority.[11] Because this division of their occupation zone into relatively large states also met the interests of the British, on 8 November 1946 Regulation No. 55 of the British military government was issued, by which the State of Lower Saxony with its capital Hanover were founded, backdated to 1 November 1946. The state was formed by a merger of the Free States of Brunswick, of Oldenburg and of Schaumburg-Lippe with the previously formed State of Hanover. But there were exceptions:
In the Free State of Brunswick, the eastern part of the district of Blankenburg and the exclave of Calvörde, which belonged to the district of Helmstedt fell into the Soviet Zone of Occupation and were later integrated into the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
In the State of Hanover, Amt Neuhaus and the villages of Neu Bleckede and Neu Wendischthun were allotted to the Soviet Zone and thus the subsequent East Germany. They were not returned to Lower Saxony until 1993.
The city of Wesermünde that then lay in the Regierungsbezirk Stade was renamed in 1947 to Bremerhaven and incorporated into the new federal state of Bremen.
The demands of Dutch politicians that the Netherlands should be given the German regions east of the Dutch-German border as war reparations, were roundly rejected at the London Conference of 26 March 1949. In fact only about 1.3 km² of West Lower Saxony was transferred to the Netherlands, in 1949.
→ see main article Dutch annexation of German territory after World War II
[edit] Tags:Bremerhaven,State Of Hanover, | |
| History of Lower Saxony as a state | |
| 3>
Ordinance No. 55, with which on November 22, 1946 the British military government founded the state Lower Saxony retroactively to November 1, 1946.
The first Lower Saxon parliament or Landtag met on 9 December 1946. It was not elected; rather it was established by the British Occupation Administration (a so-called "appointed parliament"). That same day the parliament elected the Social Democrat, Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf, the former Hanoverian president (Regierungspräsident) as their first minister president. Kopf led a five-party coalition, whose basic task was to rebuild a state afflicted by the war's rigours. Kopf's cabinet had to organise an improvement of food supplies and the reconstruction of the cities and towns destroyed by Allied air raids during the war years. Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf remained – interrupted by the time in office of Heinrich Hellwege (1955–1959) – as the head of government in Lower Saxony until 1961.
The greatest problem facing the first state government in the immediate post-war years was the challenge of integrating hundreds of thousands of refugees from Germany's former territories in the east (such as Silesia and Tags: | |
z³ote monety |