Lüneburg Heath (, ) is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen and is named after the town of Lüneburg. Most of the area is a nature reserve. Northern Low Saxon is still widely spoken in the region.
Lüneburg Heath has extensive areas, and the most yellow of heathland, typical of those that covered most of the North German countryside until about 1800, but which have almost completely disappeared in other areas. The heaths were formed after the Neolithic period by overgrazing of the once widespread forests on the poor sandy soils of the geest, as this slightly hilly and sandy terrain in northern Europe is called. Lüneburg Heath is therefore a historic cultural landscape. The remaining areas of heath are kept clear mainly through grazing, especially by a North German breed of moorland sheep called the Heidschnucke. Due to its unique landscape, Lüneburg Heath is a popular tourist destination in North Germany.
Important towns
Lüneburg Heath covers an area which includes the districts (Landkreise) of Celle, Gifhorn, Heidekreis, Uelzen, Lüneburg, Lüchow-Dannenberg, southeast Rotenburg (the town of Visselhövede, Fintel, part of the municipality of Scheeßel and the eastern half of Bothel) and the rural district of Harburg. The easternmost fringes of the Stade Geest belonging to Landkreis Verden are called the Linteln Geest (Lintelner Geest) or Verden Heath (Verdener Heide) and form part of the municipality of Kirchlinteln. This region has no sharply defined boundary with the Lüneburg Heath.
Amelinghausen Bad Bevensen Bad Fallingbostel Bispingen Buchholz in der Nordheide Celle Gifhorn Hermannsburg Lüneburg Munster Schneverdingen Soltau Uelzen Walsrode
Tourism Today the area is a popular tourist destination. Contributing to this are the theme park, Heidepark Soltau, the Walsrode Bird Park, the Serengeti Safari Park at Hodenhagen, Snow Dome Bispingen, and a Center Parc as well as the many farms offering holiday stays, making the Lüneburg Heath especially popular for families. Another group of tourists are the elderly on free guided bus tours (Kaffeefahrten), stopping for coffee and wool plaids at a farm before touring Lüneburg for an hour.
The Kunststätte Bossard in the Nordheide near Jesteburg is an expressionist Gesamtkunstwerk open to the public.
The memorial exhibition at the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near the town of Bergen is also located in the Lüneburg Heath.
Geography
Location
From a geographical point of view, Lüneburg Heath is a specific natural region, that is an area distinguished by a specific combination of abiotic factors (climate, relief, water resources, soil, geology) and biotic factors (flora and fauna). Lüneburg Heath is a sub-division of the North European Plain. In the list of the major natural regions of Germany issued by the Federal Office for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz) it is region number D28.
Lüneburg Heath lies between the rivers Elbe to the north, the Drawehn to the east, the Aller to the south and southwest, the middle course of the Wümme to the west and the Harburg Hills (Harburger Berge) to the northwest.
On the northwestern edge of Lüneburg Heath are the Harburg Hills and south of Schneverdingen there are bogs, such as the Pietzmoor. Also of note are other smaller bogs in sinkholes, like the Grundloses Moor ("bottomless bog") near Walsrode or the Bullenkuhle near Bokel (part of Sprakensehl). The eastern boundary to the Wendland is formed by the Göhrde-Drawehn Hills (the Ostheide natural region). Parts of Lüneburg Heath are in the Südheide Nature Park, others in the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park.
Hills and elevations
The highest elevation on Lüneburg Heath is the Wilseder Berg () above NN). Other hills over high are: Falkenberg (), near Bergen, Ahrberg (), Hakenberg (), Hoher Mechtin (), Pampower Berg (), Lüßberg (), Brunsberg, near Sprötze (), Goldbockenberg (), Hingstberg (), Staffelberg (), Hengstberg (), Höpenberg near Schneverdingen (), Haußelberg (), Breithorn (), Mützenberg (), Tellmer Berg (), Wümmeberg (), Schiffberg (), Hummelsberg and Wulfsberg (each ), Drullberg and Thonhopsberg (each ), Kruckberg and Wietzer Berg (each ) and Höllenberg ().
Several of these hills - the Wilseder Berg, the Falkenberg, the Haußelberg and the Breithorn - were used by the mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss, as triangulation stations in his topographical surveys of the Kingdom of Hanover from 1821 to 1825.gwdg.de – Overview of surveyed triangulation systems
Rivers and streams Rivers in the area, beside the numerous small heathland streams, include the Wümme, which rises on the western slopes of the Wilseder Berg, in the south the Lachte with its tributary the Lutter, and the Aller, the Vissel, the Böhme, the Grindau, the Meiße and the Örtze. They all belong to the Weser river system. Those flowing into the Elbe are the Aue, the Ilmenau, the Luhe and the Seeve.
Geology
The immediate subsurface layers on Lüneburg Heath are almost exclusively made up of deposits from the quaternary ice age. The landscape consists of flat plains of ground moraines, ridges of hilly terminal moraines and also of sandar - glacial outwash plains deposited at the edge of the ice sheet.
During the Saalian Stage (230,000–130,000 years ago) the area of the present-day Lüneburg Heath was covered three times by a continental ice sheet. In the last glacial period (110,000–10,000 years ago) the ice sheet no longer covered the Lüneburg Heath area; it reached only as far as the River Elbe. Due to the lack of vegetation, the much more rugged terrain at that time was heavily eroded by water, wind and by soil fluction; this resulted in valleys like the Totengrund. The material displaced by erosion, referred to as sediment (Geschiebedecksand), has a depth of 0.4 to 0.8 metres (on slopes up to 1.5 metres).
The region is mostly covered by a heathland landscape consisting of big heather and juniper areas, forests and some smaller swamps. In contrast to the areas in the north of Lüneburg Heath, the landscape is very hilly, as it is placed on a terminal moraine.
Natural divisions Lüneburg Heath is divided into the following natural sub-divisions: Hohe Heide The Hohe Heide ("High Heath") consists of a series of end moraines from the glaciers of the Saalian glaciation (230,000–130,000 years ago) with the Wilseder Berg at its heart. Unlike the other natural divisions of Lüneburg Heath, the terrain is quite rugged. Characteristic of the area are dry hilltops, periglacial dry valleys and hollows like the Totengrund. Heathland dominates the landscape. They are part of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park and of great importance for tourism. In addition there are also extensive pine forests. South Heath The South Heath (Südheide) is dominated by expanses of gently undulating, hilly Sander plains, and sheets of ground moraine and the remains of end moraines from earlier ice ages. There are still large areas of heath on the military training areas near Bad Fallingbostel and Munster (Örtze); these are out-of-bounds to visitors however. The Osterheide near Schneverdingen also belongs to this natural subdivision. It is part of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Reserve. Near Schneverdingen and south of Soltau there are several bogs. A large area of the Südheide is covered by pine forests. Ostheide Numerous end moraines run through the Ostheide ("East Heath") which stretches on the eastern edge of Lüneburg Heath from Lüneburg to north of Wolfsburg. In parts of this region the land is intensively cultivated. The northern area, the so-called Göhrde and the Drawehn, are by contrast mostly wooded like the southern ridge of end moraine. Uelzen Basin and Ilmenau depression The ground moraine landscape of the Uelzen Basin is predominantly used for agriculture. On the surrounding ridges there are also a few pine forests however. There are still large areas of heath here as well, for example the Ellerndorfer Heide ("Ellerndorf Heath") in western Uelzen district or the Klein Bünstorfer Heide ("Klein Bünstorf Heath"). Luheheide The ridges of end moraine on the Luheheide have clearly defined slopes that fall away sharply to the Elbe Valley. The heath is deeply incised by all the rivers that drain northwards to the Elbe; rivers such as the Seeve, Aue, Luhe (Ilmenau). The ridges between them are wooded and sparsely populated. Settlements are crowded together in the valleys. There is hardly any heathland left in this area, it has been largely reforested by pines.cf. BFN Lower Saxony Landscape Profile Phenologcal Natural Region Map
Climate Lüneburg Heath lies in a temperate maritime climatic region moderated by the Atlantic, with mild winters, cool summers and precipitation all-year round. The Hohe Heide, however, has a "low mountain climate" with lower temperatures and higher precipitation than in the surrounding area.
Nature
Nature parks and nature reserves
In the northwestern part of Lüneburg Heath is the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park which covers an area of . At its heart, around the Wilseder Berg, is the Lüneburg Heath Nature Reserve (Naturschutzgebiet or NSG) founded as long ago as 1921 with of land which is roughly 58% woods and 20% heathland. Other nature parks in the Lüneburg Heath region are the Südheide Nature Park and Elbufer-Drawehn Nature Park. Right in the north of the area is the Harburg Hills Nature Park. The Lüneburg Heath NSG, together with the open heathland of the huge Munster Nord and Süd training areas and the Bergen-Hohne Training Area, is the largest single area of heathland in Central Europe. And within the former province (Regierungsbezirk) of Lüneburg there are no less than 212 individual nature reserves (as at 31 December 2006).nlwkn.niedersachsen.de – Nature reserves in Lower Saxony
Formation of the heath landscape
After the end of the Weichselian Ice Age (115,000 to 10,000 years ago) the first woods appeared in the area that now forms Lüneburg Heath which, following the natural ecological succession and encouraged by a gradual improvement in the climate, progressed from birch and pine forest through hazel woods to light woods of sessile oaks.
The heath and its surrounding area belong to those regions of the North German Plain in which the hunter culture of the Mesolithic era was superseded quite early on by Neolithic farmers. By about 3000 BC, during the Neolithic, large open areas appeared on the lightly undulating, sandy stretches of geest on Lüneburg Heath. This was a result of the intensive grazing of the sessile oak woods and the associated destruction of successive new stands of trees. These open areas became dominated by the common heather (Calluna vulgaris), a largely grazing-resistant species of plant. Nevertheless, oak and beech woods succeeded time and again in establishing themselves wherever man left areas of heath untended. Over a long period of time the region of Lüneburg Heath alternated between periods when the heathlands spread and dominated the scene and times when it was largely covered with forest and only small areas of heath existed. Finally, after the migration period, the wooded areas of the region increased considerably.Heinz Ellenberg: Vegetation Mitteleuropas mit den Alpen in ökologischer, dynamischer und historischer Sicht, Stuttgart 1996, p. 721