Baltic Uplands

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The Aschberg in the Hutten Hills, a part of the Baltic Uplands Aschberg.jpg
The Aschberg in the Hütten Hills, a part of the Baltic Uplands

The Baltic Uplands [1] (German : Baltischer Landrücken or Nördlicher Landrücken) is a chain of morainic hills about 200 kilometres (120 mi) wide that border the southern Baltic Sea from Jutland to Estonia.

German language West Germanic language

German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.

Baltic Sea A sea in Northern Europe bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands

The Baltic Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, northeast Germany, Poland, Russia and the North and Central European Plain.

Jutland mainland of Denmark, a peninsula north of Germany

Jutland, also known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively.

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Geography

The uplands, which reach a height of 329 m above  sea level (NN) at Wieżyca (German : Turmberg), form the western part of the East European Plain. To the north they descend steadily into the Gulf of Finland. Towards the east they merge into the Belarusian Ridge; to the southeast they sinks gradually into the Polesian depression. To the south the terrain falls away into the extensive Vistula basin. To the west the Uplands are bordered by the North German Plain and in the northwest the terrain drops away westwards from the Schleswig-Holstein Uplands into the North Sea.

Normalnull

Normalnull or Normal-Null is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany. Elevations using this reference system were to be marked "Meter über Normal-Null". Normalnull has been replaced by Normalhöhennull.

East European Plain landscape

The East European Plain is a vast interior plain extending east of the North/Central European Plain, and comprising several plateaus stretching roughly from 25 degrees longitude eastward. It includes the westernmost Volhynian-Podolian Upland, the Central Russian Upland, and on the eastern border, encompasses the Volga Upland. The plain includes also a series of major river basins such as the Dnepr Basin, the Oka-Don Lowland, and the Volga Basin. Along the southernmost point of the East European Plain are the Caucasus and Crimean mountain ranges. Together with the North European Plain, and covering the Baltics, Moldova, south-eastern Romania, and its most southern expansion - the Danubian Plain in Northern Bulgaria, it constitutes the European Plain, the greatest mountain-free part of the European landscape.

The Baltic Uplands are crossed by the rivers Oder, Vistula, Memel and Düna. Their component hill ranges are, from west to east, the Angeln, Schwansen, Hütten Hills, Danish Wahld, Holstein Switzerland, Mecklenburg Switzerland, Pomeranian Lake Plateau (with the Wieżyca), the Masurian Lake District (with the Wzgórza Szeskie (German : Seesker Höhe) and the Lower Lithuanian Ridge.

Oder river in Central Europe flowing from the Czech Republic and along the Poland-Germany border

The Oder is a river in Central Europe and Poland's third-longest river after the Vistula and Warta. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows 742 kilometres (461 mi) through western Poland, later forming 187 kilometres (116 mi) of the border between Poland and Germany as part of the Oder–Neisse line. The river ultimately flows into the Szczecin Lagoon north of Szczecin and then into three branches that empty into the Bay of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea.

Vistula river in Eastern Europe

The Vistula is the longest and largest river in Poland and the 9th longest river in Europe, at 1,047 kilometres in length. The drainage basin area of the Vistula is 193,960 km2 (74,890 sq mi), of which 168,868 km2 (65,200 sq mi) lies within Poland. The remainder is in Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia.

Economy, tourism and landscape

The low, rolling, ground moraine landscape is fertile and supports highly productive arable farming. The chain of lakes and end moraine ridges are popular holiday areas. The poorer, sandy areas are largely covered by pine forest (e. g. Schorfheide, Tucheler Heide, Rominter Heide).

See also

Related Research Articles

Pomerania Place

Pomerania is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland.

Geography of Ukraine

The geography of Ukraine varies greatly from one region of the country to another, with the majority of the country lying within the East European Plain. Ukraine is the second-largest country by area in Europe. Its various regions have diverse geographic features ranging from highlands to lowlands, as well as climatic range and a wide variety in hydrography.

Geography of Europe description of Europes physical land mass

Europe is traditionally defined as one of seven continents. Physiographically, it is the northwestern peninsula of the larger landmass known as Eurasia ; Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass and all share a common continental shelf. Europe's eastern frontier is delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia. The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined, but the modern definition is generally the Ural River or, less commonly, the Emba River. The boundary continues to the Caspian Sea, the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, and on to the Black Sea. The Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean. Iceland, though on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and nearer to Greenland than mainland Europe, is generally included in Europe for cultural reasons and because it is over twice as close to mainland Europe as mainland North America. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe falls.

North European Plain

The North European Plain is a geomorphological region in Europe, mostly in Poland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, with small parts of northern France and Czech republic.

Wiehen Hills mountain range

The Wiehen Hills are a hill range in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony in Germany. The hills run from west to east like a long finger away from the main upland area of the Lower Saxon Hills, beginning at the Weser River near Minden and terminating in the vicinity of Osnabrück. It is the northernmost of the German Central Upland ranges extending into the Northern Lowlands. Their highest hill is the Heidbrink near Lübbecke with an altitude of 320 metres (1,050 ft).

The Belarusian Ridge is a line of terminal moraines in the northwest of Belarus. The feature is part of the East European Plain.

European watershed part the european continent

The main European watershed is the drainage divide ("watershed") which separates the basins of the rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea from those that feed the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. It stretches from the tip of the Iberian Peninsula at Gibraltar in the southwest to the endorheic basin of the Caspian Sea in Russia in the northeast.

European Plain largest mountain-free landform in Europe

The European Plain or Great European Plain is a plain in Europe and is a major feature of one of four major topographical units of Europe - the Central and Interior Lowlands. It is the largest mountain-free landform in Europe, although a number of highlands are identified within it.

North German Plain plain in Germany

The North German Plain or Northern Lowland is one of the major geographical regions of Germany. It is the German part of the North European Plain. The region is bounded by the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north and Germany's Central Uplands to the south.

Geography of Germany

Germany is a country in west-central Europe, that stretches from the Alps, across the North European Plain to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Germany has the second largest population in Europe and is seventh largest in area. The territory of Germany covers 357,021 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 349,223 km2 (134,836 sq mi) of land and 7,798 km2 (3,011 sq mi) of waters.

Holstein Switzerland rolling country

Holstein Switzerland is a hilly area with a patchwork of lakes and forest in Schleswig Holstein, Germany, reminiscent of Swiss landscape. Its highest point is the Bungsberg. It is a designated nature park as well as an important tourist destination in Northern Germany situated between the cities of Kiel and Lübeck.

Drawehn

The Drawehn is a partly wooded and partly agricultural region of hills in the northeastern part of the German state of Lower Saxony, lying between the districts of Lüneburg and Uelzen in the west and Lüchow-Dannenberg in the east.

Natural regions of Germany

This division of Germany into major natural regions takes account primarily of geomorphological, geological, hydrological, and pedological criteria in order to divide the country into large, physical units with a common geographical basis. Political boundaries play no part in this, apart from defining the national border.

Schleswig-Holstein Uplands

The Schleswig-Holstein Uplands or Schleswig-Holstein Morainic Uplands is one of the three landscapes of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein; the others being the marsch and the geest. In addition, the gently rolling hills or Hügelland of the Baltic Uplands, the many small lakes and the long, deep embayments (Förde) formed by the moraines of the Weichselian Ice Age are characteristic features of the area. Its best-known towns are Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg. The highest elevation in the area is the Bungsberg in the region known as Holstein Switzerland. On the Bungsberg is the only ski lift in the state.

Lauenburg Lakes Nature Park nature park in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

The Lauenburg Lakes Nature Park was founded in 1961 and lies in the district of Lauenburg in the southeastern part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is right on the border with the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the Schleswig-Holstein Uplands, a Young Drift moraine landscape that formed during the Weichselian glaciation of the last ice age.

Geography of Poland

Poland is a country in Central Europe with an area of 312,679 square kilometres, and mostly temperate climate. Generally speaking, Poland is an almost unbroken plain reaching from the Baltic Sea in the north, to the Carpathian Mountains in the south. Within that plain, terrain variations run in bands east to west. The Baltic coast has two natural harbors, the larger one in the Gdańsk-Gdynia region, and a smaller one near Szczecin in the far northwest. The northeastern region, also known as the Masurian Lake District with more than 2,000 lakes, is densely wooded and sparsely populated. To the south of the lake district, and across central Poland a vast region of plains extends all the way to the Sudetes on the Czech and Slovak borders southwest, and to the Carpathians on the Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian borders southeast. The central lowlands had been formed by glacial erosion in the Pleistocene ice age. The neighboring countries are Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the northeast.

The Smolensk–Moscow Upland is located in the Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Moscow and Smolensk regions of Russia, as well as the Vitebsk region of Belarus.

Hügelland is a type of landscape consisting of low, rolling hills whose topography or surface structure lies between that of a lowland region and that of a more rugged hill range or low mountain range. The term is German and has no exact equivalent in English, but is often translated as "hill country", "hilly terrain", "upland(s)" or "gently undulating" or "rolling country", or "rolling countryside". It is derived from Hügel, a low hill or hillock and appears frequently as a proper name for this type of terrain.

North Brandenburg Plateaux and Upland

The North Brandenburg Plateaux and Upland is a natural region in the northwest of Brandenburg and, to a lesser extent, the southwest of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and northeast of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. It is major unit group no. 77 in the natural regional divisions of Germany. The Brandenburg portion of the North Brandenburg Plateaux and Upland is largely coextensive with the natural region of Prignitz and Ruppin Land in the structural atlas of the state of Brandenburg.

References

  1. Dickinson, Robert E. (1964). Germany: A regional and economic geography (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 614. ASIN   B000IOFSEQ.