Gutland (french: Bon Pays) is a region covering the southern and central parts of the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small land ...
. The Gutland (literally "Good Land") covers 68% of the territory of Luxembourg; to the north of Gutland lies the
Oesling
The Oesling or Ösling () is a region covering the northern part of both the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm, within the greater Ardennes area that also covers parts of Belgium and France. The Oesling covers 32% of the terri ...
, which covers the remaining 32% of the Grand Duchy. To the east, the Luxembourgian Gutland adjoins the ''Bitburger Gutland'' of Germany.
Gutland is not an homogeneous region, and includes five main sub-regions: the
Valley of the Seven Castles
The Valley of the Seven Castles () is an informal name given to the Äischdall, the valley of the Eisch river, in central Luxembourg. The valley stretches from the confluence with the Alzette upstream to Steinfort, on the border with Belgium. The ...
,
Little Switzerland, the
Luxembourg plateau, the
Moselle valley, and the
Red Lands
The Red Lands form a geographic region in southern and south-western Luxembourg. They are so called for their red iron-laden earth. The Red Lands roughly correspond with the southern part of the canton of Esch-sur-Alzette, along the border with Fra ...
. Despite its variety, Gutland does have general geographic characteristics, both physical and human, that separate it from the Oesling.
Unlike the sparsely populated Oesling, Gutland is relatively urbanised. Whereas the Oesling has only one town with a population larger than 2,000 people, Gutland has four cities with a population largely above 15,000 (Luxembourg City/Lëtzebuerg, Esch-sur-Alzette/Esch-Uelzecht, Differdange/Déifferdang and Dudelange/Diddeleng). However, Gutland's urban areas are mostly congregated in the
cantons
A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared with other administrative divisions such as counties, departments, or provinces. Internationally, t ...
of
Esch-sur-Alzette
Esch-sur-Alzette (; lb, Esch-Uelzecht ; german: Esch an der Alzette or ''Esch an der Alzig'') is the second city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the country's second-most populous commune, with a population of 35,040 inhabitants, . It lies ...
(in luxembourgish: Esch op der Uelzecht),
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
(Lëtzebuerg), Capellen (same in luxembourgish) and Mersch (Miersch), whereas some other parts of Gutland (cantons of Redange-sur-Attert/Réiden op der Atert, Echternach/Iechternach, Grewenmacher/Gréiwemaacher and Remich/Réimech) are almost as sparsely populated as the Oesling region.
The Gutland has a lower altitude above sea level and a flatter landscape than the Oesling. Geologically, the Gutland is predominantly a large
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...
-
Triassic
The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...
sandstone formation, part of the Lorrainian system; the Oesling is predominantly
Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...
schist
Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...
and
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
. Both are wooded, but the Oesling's forests are more numerous and thicker, a testament to the slower pace of human development in the Oesling. Most of the Gutland is fertile agricultural territory - hence the name.
{{Authority control
Regions of Luxembourg
Natural regions of the Saar-Nahe Uplands
Regions of the Eifel