Brunswick Land (German : Braunschweiger Land) is a historical region in the Southeast of the German state of Lower Saxony, centred around the city of Braunschweig. It refers to the core territory of the historic Duchy of Brunswick and its successor, the Free State of Brunswick, which was disestablished in 1946.
The area stretches from the Harz mountain range in the south along the Oker river down to the Burgdorf-Peine Geest in the North German Plain. The natural landscape includes the Elm, Asse and Salzgitter Hills, the Hainberg and Vorholz ranges in the west, as well as the Harly Forest.
Today Brunswick Land roughly corresponds to the central parts of the former Lower Saxon Verwaltungsbezirk Braunschweig in its pre-1978 borders, including:
The district of Holzminden, part of the Free State of Brunswick until 1941, today belongs to the neighbouring South Lower Saxony region. Likewise, the eastern Brunswick exclaves of Calvörde and Blankenburg today are part of Saxony-Anhalt, while the northwestern exclave of Thedinghausen belongs to Verden district.
On that basis and excluding several unincorporated territories in the Harz mountains, the region has an area of 4,716.43 square kilometres (1,821.02 sq mi) and a population of 1,115,876. The population density, at 237 people/km2, is higher than the Lower Saxon and the German average.
Away from the main cities, the region encompasses large agricultural areas. The traffic infrastructure relies on numerous railway lines and controlled-access highways such as Bundesautobahn 2 and Bundesautobahn 39. The main employer in the region is Volkswagen headquartered in Wolfsburg.
Important educational facilities include the Braunschweig University of Technology, the Clausthal University of Technology, the Braunschweig University of Art, the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, as well as the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. Other institutions include the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection in Salzgitter, as well as Braunschweig locations of the German Aerospace Center, the Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (Julius-Kühn-Institut) and the Friedrich Loeffler Institute for Animal Health.
The Brunswick Landscape Association (Verein Braunschweigische Landschaft) with its seat in Braunschweig was established in 1990. As a cultural-political organisation, it has set itself the aim of promoting the identity of Brunswick Land and ties between the populations and their history after the foundation of the state of Lower Saxony. The effective area covers the central territories around the cities of Braunschweig, Salzgitter and Wolfsburg as well as the adjacent districts of Helmstedt, Peine and Wolfenbüttel. The association uses a silhouette of the Saxon Steed as its emblem.
The cities and districts of the larger Braunschweig Region form the eastern part of the Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region. The associated regional authorities closely cooperate in matters of regional planning and public transport.
The former Duchy of Brunswick arose in 1814 as successor of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, which for centuries was ruled by the Welf descendants of Henry the Lion. He had received the Duchy of Saxony as an Imperial fief in 1142 and chose the City of Braunschweig as his residence. One of the most powerful German princes, he entered into a fierce conflict with the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa and finally was banned in 1180. He could only retain his allodial possessions around Brunswick and Lüneburg, the nucleus of the later Welf duchy.
Like the tales that refer to Henry the Lion (as rendered by Agostino Steffani's opera Henrico Leone ), the legends about the medieval trickster Till Eulenspiegel from Kneitlingen, Brunswick Mum beer, or the alleged foundation of Braunschweig and Dankwarderode Castle by the Brunonid brothers Brun and Dankward, are rich in tradition. The densely forested mountains of the Harz and Elm ranges are the setting of numerous myths and fables.
Towns in the Braunschweig Region (including present-day urban districts):
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Lower Saxony is a German state in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with 47,614 km2 (18,384 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population among the 16 Länder federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, albeit in declining numbers.
Braunschweig or Brunswick is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser. In 2016, it had a population of 250,704 and in 2024, it has a population of 272,417.
Gifhorn is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany.
Peine is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Hildesheim, Hanover and Gifhorn, and the cities of Brunswick and Salzgitter.
Salzgitter is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren of Lower Saxony. With 101,079 inhabitants and 223.92 square kilometres (86.46 sq mi), its area is the largest in Lower Saxony and one of the largest in Germany. Salzgitter originated as a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, and is today made up of 31 boroughs, which are relatively compact conurbations with wide stretches of open country between them. The main shopping street of the young city is in the borough of Lebenstedt, and the central business district is in the borough of Salzgitter-Bad. The city is connected to the Mittellandkanal and the Elbe Lateral Canal by a distributary. The nearest metropolises are Braunschweig, about 23 kilometres to the northeast, and Hanover, about 51 km to the northwest. The population of the City of Salzgitter has exceeded 100,000 inhabitants since its foundation in 1942, when it was still called Watenstedt-Salzgitter. Beside Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Eisenhüttenstadt, Salzgitter is one of the few cities in Germany founded during the 20th century.
Wolfenbüttel is a district in southeastern Lower Saxony, Germany. Neighboring districts are the district-free City of Braunschweig, the district of Helmstedt, the district of Harz in Saxony-Anhalt, and the districts of Goslar, Hildesheim and Peine. The district-free city of Salzgitter cuts through the district of Wolfenbüttel in the southwest.
Helmstedt is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the district of Wolfenbüttel, the City of Braunschweig, the District of Gifhorn, the City of Wolfsburg and the State of Saxony-Anhalt.
The Duchy of Brunswick was a historical German state that ceased to exist in 1918. Its capital was the city of Brunswick. It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation, the North German Confederation and from 1871 the German Empire. It was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick.
Schöppenstedt is a small town in the district of Wolfenbüttel, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Samtgemeinde of Elm-Asse.
The Free State of Brunswick was a state of the German Reich in the time of the Weimar Republic. It was formed after the abolition of the Duchy of Brunswick in the course of the German revolution of 1918–1919. Its capital was Braunschweig (Brunswick). In 1933 it was de facto abolished by Nazi Germany. The free state was disestablished after the Second World War in November 1946.
Didderse is a municipality in the district of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a member municipality of the Samtgemeinde Papenteich.
Rötgesbüttel is a municipality in the district of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a member municipality of the Samtgemeinde Papenteich
The County of Blankenburg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. Its capital was Blankenburg, it was located in and near the Harz mountains.
The Politics of Lower Saxony takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Lower Saxony. Since 1948 politics in the state has been dominated by the rightist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leftist Social Democratic Party. Lower Saxony was one of the origins of the German environmentalist movement in reaction to the state government's support for underground nuclear waste disposal. This led to the formation of the German Green Party in 1980.
The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway was the first state railway in Germany. The first section of its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line between Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel opened on 1 December 1838.
The Hanover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region is an economic and cultural region in Northern Germany. The metropolitan region comprises approximately one third of the area of Lower Saxony, with almost half the inhabitants of the state. It has about 3.9 million people in 20 districts and counties with a total of 431 municipalities and is defined by the German Ministerkonferenz für Raumordnung (MKRO) as a medium urban area in Germany.
The Elm-Lappwald Nature Park is a nature park in southwest Lower Saxony, east of Brunswick in central Germany. It is dominated by the forested hill ranges of the Elm, Lappwald and Dorm as well as the region known as the Helmstedt Bowl.
The Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was a subdivision of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, whose history was characterised by numerous divisions and reunifications. It had an area of 3,828 square kilometres in the mid 17th century. Various dynastic lines of the House of Welf ruled Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. As a result of the Congress of Vienna, its successor state, the Duchy of Brunswick, was created in 1815.
Lichtenberg Castle, also called the Heinrichsburg, is a ruined castle dating to the 12th century in the Lichtenberge hills near Salzgitter in the German state of Lower Saxony. The ruins are found south of and above the Salzgitter suburb of Lichtenberg on the steep summit of the Burgberg.
The Brunswick–Derneburg railway was the original line of the Brunswick State Railway Company. In the late 19th century it opened up the then rural area of the area now called Salzgitter in the German state of Lower Saxony.
