Gäu (Baden-Wuerttemberg)

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The name Gäu primarily stands for a type of low-forest cultural landscape that has developed in the southwest German layered landscape between the Black Forest or the Stromberg and Heuchelberg in the west and the Swabian Alb or the Swabian Keuperwald Mountains in the east. Because of the further subdivision into Oberes or Korngäu , Heckengäu , Strohgäu and Zabergäu , one can also speak of "the Gäuen".

The word is linguistically identical to Gau (for details of the etymology see there). It already occurs in many old Germanic languages, for example Old High German as gewi, and possibly goes back to an old Germanic * gaw-ja- 'area, landscape'.

Natural properties

The Gäu is a plateau of 250 to 500 meters above sea level consisting of the rocks of the shell limestone and Lettenkeuper , in which the rivers Neckar, Ammer, Würm, Glems, Enz, Metter and Zaber have cut deeply. In the north, the Swabian Gäu landscapes merge into the high plateaus of the building land and the Tauberland , in the west they are bordered by the Black Forest , in the east by the Swabian Alb and the Keuperbergland areas Schönbuch , Glemswald and Swabian Forest .

The Gäu are agriculturally intensively used areas, the soils of which mainly consist of parabrown earths on loess . The loess cover is missing in the so-called “poor Gäuen”: on the pending karstified limestone of the Upper Muschelkalk, mostly only shallow and less fertile rendzines have developed. Hedges have formed on the stone bars ( Heckengäu ).

Comparable landscapes in the immediate vicinity of those designated as Gäue are the Schmidener Feld near Fellbach and the Backnanger Bay east of the central Neckar . A little further away, south of Stuttgart, is the loess-covered Filder Plain , which, however, geologically belongs to the Swabian Keuper-Lias-Land .

On a large scale or geologically, the Gäu can be viewed as part of the entire landscape between the Black Forest and Keuperwäldern, which is characterized by the shell limestone found in the subsurface . It narrows in the south to the regions of the upper Neckar north of the Baar . In the north it expands strongly into the areas of Lower Franconia . This “shell limestone fan” is part of an extensive “fan landscape”, the southwest German layered landscape .

Natural systematics

Geological sketch of the natural area Neckar basin with marking of loess areas.

The Gäu with its components Heckengäu, Korngäu or Oberes Gäu, Strohgäu and Zabergäu overlaps with the (touching but not overlapping) main units Obere Gäue (122) and Neckar basin (123) of the natural area Neckar- and Tauber-Gäuplatten in the systematics the handbook of natural physical Germany , without these two main units to cover completely. In the case of the Heckengäus, the natural area 150, Black Forest edge plates , may also be affected (depending on the design) .

  1. The Zabergäu is the northernmost part of the Gäus and is located as natural area 123.8 in the natural area of ​​the Neckar basin to the left of the Neckar.
  2. The natural area Korngäu (122.41) is smaller than the area described in the article Korngäu , the natural area Oberes Gäu (122.4) larger (includes the Heckengäu area, see Korngäu # designations ). Regardless of the possibilities to interpret Korngäu and Oberes Gäu , they are encompassed by the Obere Gäu (122) natural area. In any case, he keeps a certain distance from the Neckar.
  3. As already mentioned, a part of the → Heckengäu in the manual is even considered to be part of the Upper Gäu natural area . What lies north of the A8 from Heckengäu , together with the → Strohgäu , forms the southwestern part 123.1 of the Neckar basin . Here, too, there is a distance to the Neckar; This applies even more to parts of the Heckengäus that are supposed to lie on the Black Forest edge plates. If you omit this, the Heckengäu south of the A 8 is completely a part of the natural area Oberes Gäu (122.4). However, the manual still sees Heckengäu parts further south than described in Heckengäu # Geographical location , these are in the Obere Gäue (122) natural area further south than the Obere Gäu.

Regardless of the unclear delimitations, the Gäu lies entirely on the left side of the Neckar, not including the geologically similar natural area of Backnang Bay (123.3).

history

Costumes from the Gäu, second half of the 19th century

Excavations show that the Gäus region has been inhabited since the Mesolithic. Arrowheads, barrows and other finds bear witness to this. From the Celtic times a completely preserved princely grave has been found in Hochdorf im Strohgäu ( Celtic prince of Hochdorf ). It is assumed that there was a Celtic prince's seat on the Asperg, but evidence of this has not yet been provided due to the subsequent heavy overbuilding. After the Roman conquest, the Limes ran less than 100 kilometers northeast of the Gäus and made the area a Roman province. Later Alemanni settled in this area. The many place names that end in -ingen , the so-called Swabian Urdörfer, date from the 6th to 8th centuries AD.

Tourism, transport

On the western edge of the Gäus, the 120 km long Gäurandweg is a long-distance hiking trail run by the Black Forest Association . The Stuttgart – Singen route is also known as the Gäubahn . The same applies to the Eutingen – Freudenstadt connection .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Kluge. Etymological dictionary of the German language . Edited by Elmar Seebold . 25th, revised and expanded edition. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2011, p. 335.