Klöden is a village and a former municipality in

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...

district in

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Since 1 January 2011, it is part of the town

Jessen (Elster) Jessen () is a municipality on the Black Elster river and lies in the eastern part of Saxony-Anhalt in the district of Wittenberg. Geography Jessen is an amalgamated municipality, and has the following 44 subdivisions (''Ortsteile''):

Geography

Klöden lies on the

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...

about 12 km southwest of Jessen and in eastern Saxony-Anhalt. Klöden lies in the middle of the ''Elbaue'', a kind of natural

polder A polder () is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: # Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed # Flood plains s ...

, and one of the biggest

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

and

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

land areas in the region. Much of it is still wild, harbouring a great many wild animals such as

roe deer The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus''), also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapt ...

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

fallow deer ''Dama'' is a genus of deer in the subfamily Cervinae, commonly referred to as fallow deer. Name The name fallow is derived from the deer's pale brown colour. The Latin word ''dāma'' or ''damma'', used for roe deer, gazelles, and antelopes, ...

, Elbe

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

s, and many others. The plant life is also quite diverse.

History

Klöden's history is the subject of very divergent points of view. This even goes for the origin of the community's name, as well as for just when Klöden had its first documentary mention. The most up-to-date research says that the name is of Slavic origin. In 1935, the name's spelling was changed from "Clöden" to "Klöden". The earliest document that is available was drawn up on 12 April 965, but it constitutes a clever forgery (''ie'' it is authentically mediaeval, but its original purpose was fraudulent). It contains, among the 17 placenames that it mentions, one called "Clotna". What follows is a summary of what it says: :''"On 12 April 965, Kaiser Otto I of Nordhausen granted from Saint John's Monastery to Magdeburg the honey tithe from the Slavic province of Nizzi lying in his faithful Hodo's county."'' The document, originally written in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, nowadays hangs in the vicarage in Klöden. The document's legal validity only bears on the granting of honey

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more r ...

s at the aforesaid point in time. The mention of the place Clotna in the year 965 allows the conclusion that Klöden is more than 1000 years old, as the document is witness to a fraudulent acquisition of a honey tithe, not to a founding date. Source: Extracts from the ''Klödener Chronik'' by Mr. Schepeler Kurt.

Economy and transportation

Klöden is connected to Federal Highway (''Bundesstraße'') B 187, which lies 12 km north of the community, and joins Jessen and

. There is, however, no

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

connection. Jessen station is not far away, though, and Klöden may be reached from there by

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

. The Elbradweg R2 bicycle trail also serves Klöden.

References

External links

Community of Klöden – official homepage
Former municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt Jessen (Elster) {{Wittenberg-geo-stub