Osterland constituting the northernmost foothills of the
Ore Mountains slopes gently away to the plains of eastern Saxony-Anhalt.
History
The region on the Pleiße River was part of a huge forest, where the
Thuringii
The Thuringii, Toringi or Teuriochaimai, were an early Germanic people that appeared during the late Migration Period in the Harz Mountains of central Germania, a region still known today as Thuringia. It became a kingdom, which came into confl ...
formed the Thuringian Kingdom. After this was in 531 taken over by the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
,
Slavic people
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
were also moving in. Thuringians reestablished independent rule. The castle of Altenburg already existed in the 10th century, it became an imperial seat. In the following centuries German settlers from other parts moved in. It was part of the
Margravate of Meissen
The Margravate of Meissen (german: Markgrafschaft Meißen) was a medieval principality in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. It originally was a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, created out of the vast '' Marca Geronis'' ( Sax ...
in the 14th century. At this time most of the forests were cleared.
The town of Altenburg and the surrounding lands were the tiny Duchy of
Saxe-Altenburg
Saxe-Altenburg (german: Sachsen-Altenburg, links=no) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin in present-day Thuringia. It was one of the smallest of the German states with an area of 1323 square kilometer ...
from 1826 to 1918; afterwards it was a state within the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
for a short time, before it was dissolved in 1922 in order to join the
Free State of Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
.
The district in its present borders was established in 1922 under the name "Altenburg". In 1952 there was an administrative reform splitting the districts into two smaller units, called "Altenburg" and "Schmölln". They were merged again in 1994, but now under the name ''Altenburger Land''.
Coat of arms
![Flagge Landkreis Altenburger Land](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Flagge_Landkreis_Altenburger_Land.svg)
The coat of arms displays:
* The red rose stands for the Burgraviate of Altenburg and is also part of the coat of arms of the city of Altenburg
* The lion, which was the symbol of the reeves of
Plauen
Plauen (; Czech language, Czech: ''Plavno'') is, with around 65,000 inhabitants, the fifth-largest city of Saxony, Germany after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the larges ...
; they had great power in the region during the 14th and 15th centuries
* The black and gold stripes with the green ring was the coat of arms of the Saxon
Wettin dynasty
* The red acorn symbolises the
skat game, which was invented in Altenburg in 1813
Towns and municipalities
References
External links
* (German, English)
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