Lower Rhine Bay

Last updated
Satellite image of the Lower Rhine Bay Satellitenbild Niederrheinische Bucht.png
Satellite image of the Lower Rhine Bay

The Lower Rhine Bay [1] (German : Niederrheinische Bucht), sometimes called the Lower Rhine Bight, [2] is a lowland plain in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia that cuts into the Rhenish Massif. From a natural region perspective it is a major unit group which includes the Cologne Lowland around the city of Cologne as well as the land lying to the west and, in a clearly narrower strip of land, to the east of the central Cologne plain. That said, the term "Cologne Bay" or "Cologne Bight" is occasionally used, pars pro toto , for the entire region.

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.

Plain Extensive flat region that generally does not vary much in elevation

In geography, a plain is a flat, sweeping landmass that generally does not change much in elevation. Plains occur as lowlands along the bottoms of valleys or on the doorsteps of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands.

North Rhine-Westphalia State in Germany

North Rhine-Westphalia is a state of Germany.

The Lower Rhine Bay covers an area of 3,584.4 km². [3]

Location and boundaries

The Lower Rhine Bay is bordered to the east by the Berg Plateaux (Bergische Hochflächen), the western slopes of the Süder Uplands in the historic Bergisches Land. To the south, are the Lower Middle Rhine region including the Pleiser Hills, Siebengebirge and Lower Middle Rhine Valley, to the southwest is the Eifel.

Süder Uplands mountains in Germany

The Süder Uplands, form a major natural region of the Rhenish Massif in the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and northwestern Hesse. They correspond roughly to the historic regions of the Sauerland, Bergisches Land, Siegerland and Wittgenstein Land in NRW as well as the Upland and the extreme northwest of the Hinterland in Hesse.

Bergisches Land

The Bergisches Land is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over 20 artificial lakes. Wuppertal is one of the biggest towns and seen as the region's capital, whereas the southern part nowadays has closer economic and socio-cultural ties to Cologne. Wuppertal and the neighbouring cities of Remscheid, Solingen form the Bergisches Städtedreieck.

Middle Rhine landscape of Rhine valley between Nahe mouth and Bonn

Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at about its original level, and the surrounding lands raised. This gorge is quite deep, about 130 metres (430 ft) from the top of the rocks down to the average water-line.

To the north, the loess strip forms the boundary with the Lower Rhine Plain.

Loess A predominantly silt-sized clastic sediment of accumulated wind-blown dust

Loess is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of the Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.

Lower Rhine Plain plain

The Lower Rhine Plain is one of the natural regions of Germany and lies on either side of the Rhine north of the city of Düsseldorf.

The surface of the landscape is flat or gently rolling and divided by tectonically-formed ridges and valleys that mainly run from southeast to northwest. Characteristic of the area is the blanket of loess west of the Rhine deposited by the prevailing westerly winds from the Maas gravels and the heathland east of the river which is covered with coarse-grained sands.

Related Research Articles

Rhine river in Western Europe

The Rhine is one of the major European rivers, which has its sources in Switzerland and flows in an mostly northerly direction through Germany and The Netherlands to the North Sea. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German and then the Franco-German border, then flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands and eventually empties into the North Sea.

Rhineland historic region of Germany

The Rhineland is the name used for a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.

Ruhr Place in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The Ruhr is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km2 and a population of over 5 million (2017), it is the largest urban area in Germany and the third-largest in the European Union. It consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, and Lippe to the north. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land. It is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 12 million people, which is among the largest in Europe.

Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis District in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The Rheinisch-Bergische Kreis is a Kreis (district) in the Cologne Bonn Region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboringdistricts are Oberbergischer Kreis and Rhein-Sieg, and the district-free cities Cologne, Leverkusen, Solingen and Remscheid.

Dissected Till Plains

The Dissected Till Plains are physiographic sections of the Central Lowlands province, which in turn is part of the Interior Plains physiographic division of the United States, located in southern and western Iowa, northeastern Kansas, the southwestern corner of Minnesota, northern Missouri, eastern Nebraska, and southeastern South Dakota.

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.

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.

Westphalian Lowland landscape

The Westphalian Lowland, also known as the Westphalian Basin is a flat landscape that mainly lies within the German region of Westphalia, although small areas also fall within North Rhine and in Lower Saxony. Together with the neighbouring Lower Rhine Plain to the west, it represents the second most southerly region of the North German Plain, after the Cologne Bight. It is variously known in German as the Westfälische Bucht, the Münsterländer or Westfälische Tieflands- or Flachlandsbucht.

West Hesse Depression

The West Hesse Depression is part of the West Hesse Highlands and Lowlands region in the north of the German state of Hesse. Like the East Hesse Depression, it is a series of separate depressions that form a natural corridor and have been an important historical trade route.

Gäu Plateaus

The Gäu Plateaus form the largest natural region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Not surprisingly, the individual geographical units of this large region show considerable variations in climate and soil types. A common feature of the region, however, is its landscape of flat-topped hills of Muschelkalk, gently rolling tracts of loess and plateaus in which the layers of Muschelkalk have been covered by sediments of Gipskeuper and Lettenkeuper.

Weser Depression

The Weser Depression or Weser Lowlands is the region north of Porta Westfalica in Germany, where the River Weser no longer flows through a valley, but a broad plain consisting of meadows and river terraces.

The Dümme Geest Lowland is a natural region unit of the 3rd level in northwest Germany that mainly extends over southwestern Lower Saxony with a small area over the border in North Rhine-Westphalia. Its uniqueness consists in the very varied juxtaposition of different landscape elements of the Northern Lowlands of which the Dümmer Geest Lowland is a part.

Lower Germanic Limes

The Lower Germanic Limes is the former frontier between the Roman province of Germania inferior and Germania Magna. The Lower Germanic Limes separated that part of the Rhineland left of the Rhine as well as the Netherlands, which was part of the Roman Empire, from the less tightly controlled regions east of the Rhine.

Jülich-Zülpich Börde

The Jülich-Zülpich Börde is a landscape in the Rhineland in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on the northern edge of the Eifel. It forms the western part of the Lower Rhine Bay, west of the Rhine, excluding the actual Cologne Lowland, from which it is separated by the ridge of the Ville. It is divided into the Jülich Börde around the town of Jülich in the north and the Zülpich Börde around the town of Zülpich in the south, the two areas being separated from one another by the Bürge forest. Both parts are natural region major units of the Lower Rhine Bay.

Middle Rhine Basin

The Middle Rhine Basin is the central landscape region of the Middle Rhine in Germany and, along with the Limburg Basin, forms one of the biggest intra-montane lowland regions within the Rhenish Massif. The basin is divided into the valley bottom of the Neuwied Basin, the Neuwied Basin Perimeter east of the Rhine and the Lower Moselle Valley west of the Rhine in the south, and the Maifeld-Pellenz Hills in the north.

Limburg Basin structural basin

The Limburg Basin is one of the two large intramontane lowland areas within the Rhenish Massif in Germany, the other being the Middle Rhine Basin. It forms the central part of the natural region of the Gießen-Koblenz Lahn Valley between the Weilburg Lahn Valley Region and the Lower Lahn Valley on both sides of the Lahn around the town of Limburg.

References

  1. Leipzig Institute for Regional Studies, The Rhine Valley: Urban, Harbour and Industrial Development and Environmental Problems, International Geographic Union, 1996, pp. 5, 108 and 109.
  2. Luttig, G.W. (ed.), General Geology of the Federal Republic of Germany, Nagel u. Obermiller, 1980, pp. 29 and 44.
  3. Meynen, E. and Schmithüsen, J., Handbuch der naturräumlichen Gliederung Deutschlands. Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde, Remagen/Bad Godesberg, 1953–1962 (9 issues in 8 books, updated map at 1:1,000,000 scale with major units, 1960).