List of castles and palaces in Lower Saxony

Last updated February 12, 2023

Numerous castles and palaces are found in the German state of Lower Saxony . These buildings, some of which have a history of over 1000 years, were the setting of historical events, domains of famous personalities and are still imposing buildings to this day.

This list encompasses those structures built as fortified sites, usually described in German as a Burg (castle or manor house) or Festung (fort/fortress), as well as those built primarily as aristocratic residences - stately homes and palaces - usually referred to in German as a Schloß or Palais/Palast.

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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 Ländercode: deu promoted to code: de federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, albeit in declining numbers.

The Aller[ˈalɐ] is a 215-kilometre-long (134 mi) river in the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony in Germany. It is a right-hand, and hence eastern, tributary of the Weser and is also its largest tributary. Its last 117 kilometres (73 mi) form the Lower Aller federal waterway (Bundeswasserstraße). The Aller was extensively straightened, widened and, in places, dyked, during the 1960s to provide flood control of the river. In a 20-kilometre-long (12 mi) section near Gifhorn, the river meanders in its natural river bed.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osterode am Harz</span> Place in Lower Saxony, Germany

Osterode am Harz, often simply called Osterode, is a town in south-eastern Niedersachsen on the south-western edge of the Harz mountains. It was the seat of government of the district of Osterode. Osterode is located on the German Timber-Frame Road.

Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle was the repudiated wife of future King George I of Great Britain. The union with George, her first cousin, was a marriage of state, arranged by her father George William, her father-in-law the Elector of Hanover, and her mother-in-law, Electress Sophia of Hanover, first cousin of King Charles II of England. Sophia Dorothea is best remembered for her alleged affair with Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck that led to her being imprisoned in the Castle of Ahlden for the last thirty years of her life.

The term Kaiserpfalz or Königspfalz refers to a number of castles and palaces across the Holy Roman Empire that served as temporary, secondary seats of power for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Early and High Middle Ages. The term was also used more rarely for a bishop who, as a territorial lord (Landesherr), had to provide the king and his entourage with board and lodging, a duty referred to as Gastungspflicht.

A water castle is a castle whose site is largely defended by water. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats or natural waterbodies such as island castles in a river or offshore. The term comes from European castle studies, mainly German Burgenkunde, but is sometimes used in English-language popular science books and websites, and is mentioned in other more academic works. When stately homes were built in such a location, or a Wasserburg was later rebuilt as a residential manor, the German term becomes Wasserschloss, lit. "water palace/manor".

Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the German city of Braunschweig (Brunswick). It is about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) southeast of the city centre and was opened on 1 October 1960, replacing the old passenger station on the southern edge of the old town. The train services are operated by Deutsche Bahn, Erixx, Metronom and WestfalenBahn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region</span> Place in Lower Saxony ----, Germany

The Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region is an economic and cultural region in Northern Germany. The metropolitan area 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weser Renaissance</span> Form of Northern Renaissance architectural style

Weser Renaissance is a form of Northern Renaissance architectural style that is found in the area around the River Weser in central Germany and which has been well preserved in the towns and cities of the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hohnstein Castle</span> German castle ruins

Hohnstein Castle is one of the largest and best-preserved castle ruins in Germany and is located near Neustadt in the vicinity of Nordhausen in Thuringia.

Scharzfels Castle is the medieval ruin of a fortification located east of the village of Scharzfeld in the borough of Herzberg am Harz in central Germany. It lies in a wood on a ridge about 150 m above the Oder valley. For centuries after its construction in the 10th or 11th century it remained an impregnable fortress. The inner ward is built on a dolomite rock outcrop about 20 m high. The castle was first captured after a siege in 1761 during the Seven Years' War and then blown up.

Saldern or von Saldern, is the name of an old German aristocratic family from the areas of Hildesheim and Brunswick Land. The family seat of the same name is an eponymous castle on the River Fuhse in Salzgitter-Salder. Originally the family, whose branches are still alive today, only owned estates in the Lower Saxony area, but from the middle of the 16th century they also owned extensive property in the March of Brandenburg.

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 following is a timeline of the history of the city of Braunschweig (Brunswick), Germany.

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List of castles and palaces in Lower Saxony

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