North German Plain
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The North German Plain is one of the major landscape areas of Germany. The region is delimited by the coasts of the North Sea and Baltic Sea to the north and the central European uplands to the south.

According to the German Federal Nature Conservation Agency, The North German lowlands consist of the following sections:

Physical map of Germany. To a great extent, the North German lowlands correspond to the dark green surfaces to the north of the tan colored low mountain ranges

* D01 Coastal region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

* D02 North-eastern Mecklenburg plain together with the Szczecin Lagoon area

* D03 Hinterland of the Mecklenburg Lake District

* D04 Mecklenburg Lake District

* D05 Mecklenburg-Brandenburg plain and hills

* D06 East Brandenburg plain

* D07 Oder valley

* D08 Lusatian sedimentary basin and Spreewald

* D09 Lower Elbe valley

* D10 Elbe-Mulde lowland

* D11 Fläming

* D12 Brandenburg heath and lakes area

* D13 Upper Lusatian Heath

* D14 Upper Lusatia

* D21 Schleswig-Holstein marshes

* D22 Schleswig-Holstein drylands (older moraines above marsh level)

* D23 Schleswig-Holstein hills (more recent moraines)

* D24 Lower Elbe lowlands (Elbe marshes)

* D25 Ems and Weser marshes

* D26 East Frisian drylands

* D27 Stade drylands

* D28 Lüneburg Heath

* D29 Wendland and Altmark

* D30 Dümmer dry lowlands and Ems-Hunte drylands

* D31 Weser-Aller-plain

* D34 Münsterland (Westphalian) lowland gap

* D35 Lower Rhine lowlands and Cologne gap

In the west the Lower Saxonian mountainous range, Teutoburg Forest, Wiehengebirge, Wesergebirge and the Börde-areas of Lower Saxony limit the North German plain to the south and partly cutting off the Westphalian lowland bay. Furthermore Rhenish Schiefergebirge with its subranges Eifel, Bergisches Land and Sauerland act as a southern boundary. In the east the lowlands stretch eastward of the Harz and Kyffhäuser further south up to the Saxon hill country and Ore Mountains.

Landscape, soils and their formation

Morning fog in East Frisia.

It is certain that the North German plain was formed during the Pleistocene era in various glacial advances of the inland Scandinavian ice sheets as well as by periglacial geomorphologic processes.¹ Depending on whether or not the area was formed by the ice of the last ice age, the Weichsel ice age, one may refer to new or old moraine land. The surface relief varies from level to undulating. The lowest points are low moorlands and old marshland on the edge of the ridge of dry land in the west of Schleswig-Holstein (the Wilster Marsh is 3.5 metres below sea level) and in the north west of Lower Saxony (Freepsum, 2.3 metres below sea level). The highest points may be referred to as Vistula-glacial and Hall-glacial terminal moraines (depending on the ice age which formed them) – e.g. in the Fläming (200 metres above sea level) and the Helpter mountains (179 metres). Subsequent to the Ice Ages, former extensive rain-catching mountain bogland originated in western and northern Lower Saxony during warm periods of high precipitation (cf the Atlantic warm period).

The coastal areas consist of Holocene lake and river marshes and lagoons connected to Pleistocene old and new moraine land in various stages of formation and weathering. After or during the retreat of the glaciers wind-borne sand dunes were often formed, which were later fixed by vegetation. Human intervention causeed the emergence of open heaths such as Lüneburg Heath, and by such measures as deforestation and so-called Plaggenhieb (removal of the upper soil for use as fertiliser elsewhere) caused a wide impoverishment of the soil (Podsol) . The most fertile soils are the young marshes (Auen-Vegen) and the Börde areas (Hildesheim Börde, Magdeburg Börde, with their loessic and fertile soils). High level bog peat can be found in the poorest soils, e.g. in the Devil's Moor. In the Loess areas of the lowland are found the oldest settlement locations in Germany (Linear Pottery culture).

The north eastern part of the plain (new moraine land) is geomorphologically distinct and contains a multitude of lakes (e.g. the Mueritz lake in the Mecklenburg Lake District) which are vestiges of the last Ice Age. The retreating glaciers left this landscape behind around 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. In comparison, the dry plains of NW Germany (Lower Saxony and western Schleswig-Holstein) are more heavily weathered and graded (old moraine land) as the last large scale glaciations here occurred at least 130,000 years ago.

The region is drained by rivers that flow northward into the North Sea or the Baltic Sea. The Rhine, Ems, the Weser, the Elbe and Havel are the most important rivers which drain the North German lowlands into the North Sea and created woods in their flood plains and folds, e.g. the Spree wood.² Only a small surface interest belongs to the catchment area from Or and Neiße and drains into the Baltic Sea.

Climate and Vegetation

The North Sea coast and the facingcoastal areas of the and the facing East and North Frisian Islands are characterised by an euoceanic climate. South of the coast, a broad band of oceanic and suboceanic climate stretches from the east coast of Schleswig-Holstein to the western edges of the central German highlands. To the south east and east, the climate becomes increasingly subcontinental: inter alia, the temperature differences between summer and winter progressively increase. Locally, a drier continental climate can be found in the rain shadow of the Harz and some smaller uplands like the Drawehn and the Fläming. Special microclimates occur in bogs and heathlands and, for example, in the Altes Land near Hamburg, which is characterised by relatively mild temperatures year round due to the vicinity of the North Sea and lower Elbe river, providing excellent conditions for fruit production.

Azonal vegetation complexes of moors, riparian forests, fens and water bodies originally stretched along the rivers Ems, Weser, Elbe, Havel and Spree. Distinctive salt meadows, tideflats and tidal reed beds in the estuaries existed permanently in the tidal zone of the North Sea coast. The zonal vegetation of the North German lowlands would be after the ruling doctrine to a great extent formed by the climax vegetation of the European Beech forest (Fagetalia).

Military Importance

The North German plain, due to its strategic geography suitable for armored and mechanized maneuver, was logically assumed by NATO planners to be one of the two major invasion routes into Western Europe that Warsaw Pact forces, led by the dread Soviet Third Shock Army, would use if the Cold War ever got "hot". (The other route was through the Fulda Gap.)

See also

• Northern European Plain

Notes

References

• Ellenberg, Heinz. Vegetation Mitteleuropas mit den Alpen in ökologischer, dynamischer und historischer Sicht: 170 Tabellen. Stuttgart: Ulmer, 1996. ISBN 3825281043.

External links

• The North German Lowland
• "North German Plain", Britannica Online Encyclopedia
• Federal (German) Statistical Office - Geography and climate
• Germany's Geography