The Ankum Heights (), also called the Fürstenau Hills (''Fürstenauer Berge''), are a ridge of hills up to 140 m high in the western part of the state of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

on the

North German Plain The North German Plain or Northern Lowland () is one of the major geographical regions of Germany. It is the German part of the North European Plain. The region is bounded by the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north, Germany's ...

Geography

The densely forested Ankum Heights, which are about long and only a few kilometres wide, lies roughly north-northwest of the city of

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...

on the boundary of the districts of

Emsland Landkreis Emsland () is a districts of Germany, district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems (river), Ems. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Leer (district), Leer, Cloppenburg (district), Cloppenbur ...

and

between

Herzlake Herzlake is a municipality in the Emsland district, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to ...

to the northwest and

Bramsche Bramsche is a town in the district of Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is about north of Osnabrück, at . Population is 30,952 (2018). Subdivisions In 1971/72 12 previously independent municipalities were included into the town. *Achmer *B ...

to the southeast, Fürstenau in the southwest and

Bersenbrück Bersenbrück (; Northern Low Saxon: ''Bessenbrügge'') is a town in the district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Hase, approx. 30 km north of Osnabrück. Bersenbrück is the seat of the ''Samtgemeinde'' ...

in the northeast. The southeastern foothills of the ridge, which form the northwestern part of the

North Teutoburg Forest-Wiehen Hills Nature Park The TERRA.vita Nature Park () is located in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia and is divided into northern and southern areas. The park is also known as the ''Osnabrück Land Nature Park'' and sometimes by its old name of ...

reach almost as far as the

Alfsee The Alfsee is a reservoir in the north of the district of Landkreis Osnabrück, Osnabrück in the state of Lower Saxony in north Germany. It has an area of 2.2 km2. It acts as a flood retention basin for the Drainage basin, catchment area o ...

lake. East of the Ankum Heights are the

Damme Hills The Damme Hills are a high, wooded ridge, up to , in the Oldenburg Münsterland in the southern part of the district of Vechta, in western Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography Location The ridge of the Damme Hills, which is about long and on ...

, to the southeast are the west-northwestern outliers of the

Wiehen Hills The Wiehen HillsElkins, T.H. (1972). ''Germany'' (3rd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus, 1972. . (, , also locally, just ''Wiehen'') are a hill range in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony in Germany. The hills run from west to east like a long f ...

, to the south is Tecklenburg Land and the northwestern outliers of the

Teutoburg Forest The Teutoburg Forest ( ; ) is a range of low, forested hills in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the 17th century, the official name of the hill ridge was Osning. It was first renamed the ''Teutoburg Forest'' ...

, to the west the

Lingen Heights The Lingen Heights () is a ''Hügelland'', or landscape of low, rolling hills, up to 91 metres high, in the North German Plain in the western part of the north German state of Lower Saxony. Geography The densely forested Lingen Heights, th ...

and the

, in the northwest the

Hümmling The Hümmling (''Homelinghen'', from ''hömil'' = small stone) is a ground moraine landscape, up to , in the Emsland region on the North German Plain in the western part of the German state of Lower Saxony. Location The wooded Hümmling, whic ...

and to the north the

Oldenburg Münsterland The Oldenburg Münsterland, otherwise called Oldenburger Münsterland or Oldenburgisches Münsterland, is a region in Lower Saxony, Germany and the administrative area that comprises the Districts of Germany, federal districts of Cloppenburg and ...

Geology

The Ankum Heights are part of a series of

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

end moraine A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front e ...

s from the early part of the

Saale glaciation The Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (), Saale complex (''Saale-Komplex'') or Saale glacial stage (called the Wolstonian Stage in Britain), covers the middle of the three lar ...

, the so-called ''Drenthe I'' stage. The

, the

Kellenberg Kellenberg Memorial High School is a Roman Catholic college-preparatory school in Uniondale, New York, on Long Island, United States. Kellenberg Memorial is a Marianist school on Long Island, alongside St. Martin de Porres Marianist School in Un ...

and the Brelinger Berg also belong to this

push moraine A push moraine or pushed moraine is in geomorphology a moraine (a landform formed by glacial processes) that forms when the terminus advance of a lowland glacier pushes unstratified glacial sediment into a pile or linear ridge in front of it. A pus ...

, also called the ''Rehburg Phase'', which can be dated to about 230,000 years ago. The Rehburg Hills by the lake of the

Steinhuder Meer Lake Steinhude, , , is a lake in Lower Saxony, Germany located northwest of Hanover. Named after the nearby village of Steinhude, it has an area of about , making it the largest lake of northwestern Germany. At the same time, Lake Steinhude is ...

, are not, however, part of the moraine. Together with their almost symmetrical counterpart, the Damme Hills, the Ankum Heights display the most marked glacial lobes of this push moraine. It filled the lowland bay of the Artland.

History

Several

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

indicate that the Ankum Heights were already occupied in

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

times.

Transport links

The Ankum Heights may be reached from the B 68 federal road, which passes the ridge to the east, the B 218, which runs along the southwestern edge of the feature, the

214 Year 214 ( CCXIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Messalla and Suetrius (or, less frequently, year 967 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 214 for this ...

, which crosses it from west to east, and the B 402, which runs west of the Ankum Heights. A number of local ''

Landesstraße ''Landesstraßen'' (singular: ''Landesstraße'' ) are roads in Germany and Austria that are, as a rule, the responsibility of the respective German or Austrian federal state. The term may therefore be translated as "state road". They are road ...

n'' and ''

Kreisstraße A Kreisstraße (, or 'county road') is a class of road in Germany. It carries traffic between the towns and villages within a ''Districts of Germany, Kreis'' or district or between two neighbouring districts. In importance, the ''Kreisstraße'' ...

n'' roads branch off the B roads and lead to the ridge.

Hills

The highest

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

s in the Ankum Heights are the Trillenberg, which is high and is located in the southeastern part, and the Queckenberg, which has a northwestern summit and a southeastern peak and lies in the centre of the range.

Waterbodies

The rivers and streams in and near the Ankum Heights include the: *

Hase The Hase () is a river of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ems, but part of its flow goes to the Else, that is part of the Weser basin. Its source is in the Teutoburg Forest, south-east of Osnabrück, on the north slope ...

, passing the Ankum Heights to the east; an eastern

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the

Ems Ems or EMS may refer to: Places and rivers * Domat/Ems, a Swiss municipality in the canton of Grisons * Ems (river) (Eems), a river in northwestern Germany and northeastern Netherlands that discharges in the Dollart Bay * Ems (Eder), a river o ...

* Fürstenauer Mühlenbach, rises in the middle of the Heights; an eastern tributary of the Deeper Aa in the catchment area of the

Großer Aa Grosser or Großer is the masculine nominative singular form of the German adjective "gross", meaning "big", "great", "large", "tall", and the like. It is part of many placenames, especially of mountains. It is also a surname. People with that surn ...

* Ueffelner Aue, rises in the southeast of the Heights; southwestern tributary of the Hase * Weeser Aa, rises in the southeast, upper course of the Halverder Aa in the catchment area of the Großer Aa

Villages

{{Authority control Ridges of Lower Saxony Forests and woodlands of Lower Saxony Vechta (district)