The Upper Palatine-Upper Main Hills (german: Oberpfälzisch-Obermainisches Hügelland), also called the Upper Palatine-Upper Main Hills and Uplands (''Oberpfälzisch-Obermainisches Hügel- und Bergland'') form a landscape of low, rolling hills between the

Franconian Jura The Franconian Jura ( , , or ) is an upland in Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. Located between two rivers, the Danube in the south and the Main in the north, its peaks reach elevations of up to and it has an area of some 7053.8 km2. Emil Meyn ...

in the southwest and (from northwest to southeast) the

Franconian Forest View to Döbraberg The Franconian Forest''Franconian Forest''
at www.britannica.com. Acce ...

, Fichtel Mountains and

Upper Palatine Forest The Upper Palatine Forest (german: Oberpfälzer Wald or ''Böhmischer Wald'', cs, Český les) is a mountain range in Central Europe that is divided between Germany and the Czech Republic. It is part of the larger Bohemian Massif and the German ...

in the northeast. The region runs from northwest to southeast and is about 170 kilometres long, but only 7 to 35 kilometres wideE. Meynen und J. Schmithüsen:

Handbuch der naturräumlichen Gliederung Deutschlands The ''Handbook of Natural Region Divisions of Germany'' (german: Handbuch der naturräumlichen Gliederung Deutschlands) was a book series resulting from a project by the former German Federal Institute for Regional Studies ('' Bundesanstalt für La ...

– Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde, Remagen/Bad Godesberg 1953-1962 (9 Lieferungen in 8 Büchern, aktualisierte Karte 1:1.000.000 mit Haupteinheiten 1960) and lies mainly in the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n administrative provinces of

Upper Franconia Upper Franconia (german: Oberfranken) is a ''Regierungsbezirk'' (administrative 'Regierungs''region 'bezirk'' of the state of Bavaria, southern Germany. It forms part of the historically significant region of Franconia, the others being Middle F ...

and

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

; small elements, however, also lie within the

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 lar ...

n county of

Sonneberg Sonneberg in Thuringia, Germany, is the seat of the Sonneberg district. It is in the Franconian south of Thuringia, neighboring its Upper Franconian twin town Neustadt bei Coburg. Sonneberg became known as the "world toy city", and is home to ...

. Its best known settlements are (from northwest to southeast)

(in the extreme northeast), Kulmbach, Marktzeuln near Lichtenfels (at the northwest edge), Bayreuth, Weiden (Ostrand), Amberg and

Schwandorf Schwandorf is a town on the river Naab in the Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany, which is the seat of the Schwandorf district. Sights * Catholic parish church of St. Jakob * Kreuzberg Church: Catholic parish, monastic and pilgrimage church of ...

Natural region classification

The Upper Palatine-Upper Main Hills are, according to the Handbook of the Natural Region Divisions of Germany, a

natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and ...

major unit group. They are generally seen as part of the South German Scarplands, but there are also levels, which it - just as with the major landscapes and hill regions bordering it to the southwest and northeast - covers as an independent "2nd order major landscape".Because the State Institute for Regional Studies, who published the handbook, classed the UP-UM Hills initially as part of the South German Scarplands, but since 1969 has tended to call the landscape as an independent "2nd Order Major Landscape" (''Großlandschaft 2. Ordnung''), se
mapping
The Upper Palatine-Upper Main Hills is subdivided into major units (three figures) as follows:
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121219061530/http://www.bfn.de/0503_karten.html , date=2012-12-19 des

BfN The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (german: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, ''BfN'') is the German government's scientific authority with responsibility for national and international nature conservation. BfN is one of the government' ...

* 07 (=D62) Upper Palatine-Upper Main Hills ** 070 Upper Palatine Hills ** 071

Upper Main Hills Upper may refer to: * Shoe upper or ''vamp'', the part of a shoe on the top of the foot * Stimulant, drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both * ''Upper'', the original film title for the 2013 found f ...

The dividing line between the two landscapes is mainly the watershed between the

Main Main may refer to: Geography * Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries ...

(north) and

Naab __NOTOC__ The Naab ( Czech: ''Nába'') is a river in Bavaria, Germany, and is a left tributary of the Danube. Including its main source river Waldnaab, it is long. Its average discharge at the mouth is . The Naab is formed by the confluence of t ...

(south). The Upper Palatine Hills contain practically all the rock periods between the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

and the current period, whilst the surface rocks of the Upper Main Hills are predominantly of

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

and

Brown Jurassic The Brown Jurassic or Brown Jura (german: Brauner Jura or ''Braunjura'') in earth history refers to the middle of the three lithostratigraphic units of the South German Jurassic, the latter being understood not as a geographical, but a geological ...

References

External links

* Landscape fact files by the

: *
Upper Palatine Hills
**

**

(only partly in the Upper Palatine Hills) *

**

* ttp://www.lfu.bayern.de/natur/sap/arteninformationen/ort/suche?nummer=D62&typ=naturraum Species list(Bavarian State Office for the Environment) Upper Franconia Upper Palatinate South Thuringia