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The Düben Heath () is a landscape in
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 the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in eastern
Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...
and northern
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
, between the rivers
Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) 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 Republic), then Ge ...
and the
Mulde The Mulde () is a river in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is a left tributary of the Elbe and is long. The river is formed by the confluence, near Colditz, of the Zwickauer Mulde (running through Zwickau) and the Freiberger Mulde (wit ...
, on the northern edge of the
Leipzig Bay The Leipzig BayDickinson (1964), p. 29.Dessau Dessau is a district of the independent city of Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the ''States of Germany, Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Until 1 July 2007, it was an independent ...
, in the north by the Elbe valley (
Wittenberg Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is the fourth-largest town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. It is situated on the River Elbe, north of Leipzig and south-west of the reunified German ...
, Pretzsch), in the southeast by
Torgau Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies first met near ...
, in the south by
Eilenburg Eilenburg (; , ) is a town in Germany. It lies in the district of Nordsachsen in Saxony, approximately 20 km northeast of the city of Leipzig. Geography Eilenburg lies at the banks of the river Mulde at the southwestern edge of the D� ...
and the course of the Mulde through
Bad Düben Bad Düben (), until 1948 Düben is a town in the district of Nordsachsen in Saxony in Germany. It is situated at the southern end of the Düben Heath Nature Park (Düben Heath), between the rivers Elbe and Mulde, which runs through the city cente ...
and
Bitterfeld Bitterfeld () is a town in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 July 2007 it has been part of the town of Bitterfeld-Wolfen. It is situated approximately 25 km south of Dessau, and 30 km northeast of Hall ...
. The Düben Heath is a
terminal 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 ...
landscape formed during 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 ...
(Plateau of Gräfenhainichen-Schmiedeberg) with predominantly
sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...
y soils. Beneath this
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
cover lie lignite-bearing strata. The majority of the Düben Heath is covered by
forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...
. The eastern part of the Düben Heath, with the resort of
Bad Düben Bad Düben (), until 1948 Düben is a town in the district of Nordsachsen in Saxony in Germany. It is situated at the southern end of the Düben Heath Nature Park (Düben Heath), between the rivers Elbe and Mulde, which runs through the city cente ...
, is designated as a
nature park A nature park, or sometimes natural park, is a designation for a protected area by means of long-term land planning, sustainable resource management and limitation of agricultural and real estate developments. These valuable landscapes are pres ...
. In the western part around
Gräfenhainichen Gräfenhainichen () is a town in Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Geography The town was the seat of the offices of the administrative community (''Verwaltungsgemeinschaft'') of Tor zur Dübener Heide until it was disbanded in Jan ...
and
Bitterfeld Bitterfeld () is a town in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 July 2007 it has been part of the town of Bitterfeld-Wolfen. It is situated approximately 25 km south of Dessau, and 30 km northeast of Hall ...
,
lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...
was extracted until the end of the 1980s in open pits; as a result large areas of the natural woodland landscape were destroyed. Since then, the pits have been remediated and the hollows with water. In the vicinity of Gräfenhainichen on a peninsula in the flooded ''
Ferropolis Ferropolis, "the city of iron", is an open-air museum of huge mid-20th century industrial machines in Gräfenhainichen, a city between Wittenberg and Dessau, Germany. These can measure up to 30 meters high and 120 meters long, and weigh up to 1, ...
'' open pit a
museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...
of technology has been established, where open pit mining equipment and
railway vehicle The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...
s are displayed. The dialects spoken in the Düben Heath in former times were as different as the landscape of the heath is varied. These dialects are sub-groups of the
Upper Saxon German Upper Saxon (, , ) is an East Central German dialect spoken in much of the modern German state of Saxony and in adjacent parts of southeastern Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Thuringia. As of the early 21st century, it is mostly extinct and a new r ...
dialect, which is one of the central German languages. The development of these dialects was a result of several settlement phases, shaped by the borders of different domains and foreign influences. With the settlement of displaced persons from the
former eastern territories of Germany In present-day Germany, the former eastern territories of Germany () refer to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany, i.e. the Oder–Neisse line, which historically had been considered German and which were annexed b ...
in the late 1940s, the migration of labour, the influence of literature, press, radio and television, the dialects of the Düben Heath are now hardly spoken.


See also

*
Düben Heath Nature Park The Düben Heath Nature Park (), which covers large areas of the eponymous Düben Heath, was the first nature park in Germany that resulted from a citizen's initiative and not from a government office. Around 1990, in order to prevent the further ...
*
List of regions of Saxony A classification of the various regions of Saxony cannot be achieved in any uniform or standard way, as the commonly used names usually represent a mixture of historical regions and geographical features. Many well-known names of regions, such as ...


Literature

* ''Archivbilder DÜBENER HEIDE'', Author: Manfred Wilde, Sutton Verlag GmbH, Erfurt, 1999 * ''Aus dem Volksmund der Heimat - Wörterbuch der Dübener Heide'', Author: Otto Kieser, Herausgeber: Verein Dübener Heide e.V., 2nd edition, 2007


External links


Duebener-heideDuebener-heide NaturparkTourism in the Düben HeathPressel Heath Woodland and Moor Region – the most beautiful part of the Düben Heath
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubener Heide Forests and woodlands of Saxony Forests and woodlands of Saxony-Anhalt Geography of Saxony Geography of Saxony-Anhalt Protected landscapes in Germany