Lübbecker Loessland
The Lübbecker Loessland is a natural spatial main unit immediately north of the Wiehengebirge and thus of the (more western) Lower Saxony mountainous region in north-eastern North Rhine-Westphalia , and to a lesser extent also in Lower Saxony to the west . It encompasses the loess-covered , 1 to 11 km wide and 55 km long strip of land that connects to the eastern Wiehen Mountains to the north. The total area of the area is around 300 km². The Lübbecker Loessland is a transition area between the North German lowlands and the low mountain range threshold . In the north it borders on the Rahden-Diepenauer Geest , in the east on the Middle Weser Valley near Minden . Centrally located city is Lübbecke .
Natural structure
The Lübbecker Loessland was defined for the first time in the 1950s as part of the work on the manual of the natural structure of Germany . On the first mapping from 1954, it took up a very narrow strip of land with an area of 130.9 km², which only went just north over the Mittelland Canal in the far west and ended at Wittlage in the west . This area was also specified in the 6th edition of the manual in 1959, but the author of that section, Sofie Meisel , had already published the single sheet 1: 200,000 85 Minden from the same company in the same year , which includes the majority of the landscape and this clearly more spacious. Smaller extensions to the west followed in 1961 with sheet 83/84 Osnabrück / Bentheim by the same author. The total area increased to a total of around 300 km².
Although the Loessland was numerically assigned to the Lower Weserbergland (main unit group 53), Meisel drew the boundary of the natural spatial regions of the 1st order between the North German lowlands and the low mountain range threshold immediately south, so that this separates the Lübbecker Loessland from all other main units of the Lower Saxon mountainous region. In later works by the same house (Heinrich Müller-Miny et al), the landscape was finally put together with the Lower Saxony Börden (52) and the landscapes to the east and also on the edge of the low mountain range to form the second order Greater Region Lößbörden .
The following list of all sub-natural spaces is ordered from west to east, and secondly from north to south;
- (numerically sorted at 53 Lower Weserbergland , but later placed at 52 Lower Saxony Börden )
- 533 Lübbecker Loessland
- (Western Lübbecker Loessland)
- 533.6 Schwagstorfer Loessvorland (immediately east of 536.1, north of 536.0)
- 533.0 Wittlager Lößvorland (east of 533.6)
- (Middle Lübbecker Loessland)
- 533.1 Alsweder Niederungen (east of 533.0)
- 533.2 Lübbecker Loesshang (southeast of 533.1, at the junction with 532.2)
- (Eastern Lübbecker Loessland)
- 533.5 Hartumer loess plate (north)
- 533.4 Bastau lowland (middle)
- 533.3 Rothenuffelner Loesshang (south, junction to 532.3)
- (Western Lübbecker Loessland)
- 533 Lübbecker Loessland
Political division
Most of the municipal area of Bad Essen in the Lower Saxon district of Osnabrück and of Preußisch Oldendorf , Lübbecke, Hille in the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Minden-Lübbecke belong to the Lübbecker Loessland , here Minden also has a small share of the area.
Natural features
The Lübbecker Loessland presents itself as a gently sloping, partly hilly Börden landscape from south to north. While the southern border of the Lübbecker Loessland is clearly defined with the tree line to the Wiehengebirge, the transition to the Rahden-Diepenauer Geest takes place gradually. Only in the east to the Großer Torfmoor and the Bastauwiesen does the demarcation have a certain degree of selectivity. The main characteristic is the eponymous loess , which was blown out of the sands of the glacier edge, especially during the last Ice Age, and deposited on the northern slope of the Wiehengebirge.
Due to the excellent loess soils, it is mainly used for arable farming. Grassland is found, if at all, only in rugged terrain, e.g. B. in the course of streams and partly directly on the tree line to the Wiehengebirge. There are no extensive forests in Lübbecker Loessland itself. Occasional small groves, which then z. T. are placed under nature protection, such. B. the nature reserve Finkenburg . Apart from the short streams that arise in the neighboring Wiehen Mountains to the south and hardly meander through the Lübbecker Loessland, there are no significant natural bodies of water. Still waters are only available where z. B. in the context of the mining of clay pits or hollows that have then filled with groundwater or where humans have created mill ponds to regulate water power. The Lübbecker Loessland begins in the north at around 50 meters above sea level and rises gently towards the south, but then gradually becomes steeper. The southern limit, i.e. the tree line of the Wiehen Mountains, is between 100 and 130 meters above sea level. This means that, for example, in the area of the city of Lübbecke, the area has a greater gradient of around 1.5 kilometers than the 150-kilometer stretch from the northern edge of the area to the North Sea. However, it should be noted here that a considerable part of the Wiehengebirge itself, partly up to the main ridge, still has a layer of loessː In a water drilling between the Heidbrink and the Reineberg in 1928, for example, yellow loam was found to a depth of one meter.
Use by humans
The loess area, with its heavy but fertile soils and arable land of 75 or more are not uncommon, and has been used intensively for arable farming since ancient times. This is why today z. T. the high population density in this area. In some cases, the building site is so dominant that there is hardly any space left for agricultural land today; sometimes one village follows another. Outside of the main settlements, arable farming predominates by far, in particular cereal cultivation ( wheat , barley ) and beetroot , e.g. Sometimes mixed with large-scale special crops ( cultivated apples , sweet and sour cherries , strawberries and berry bushes ). The cultivation of sugar beet , although the soil favored this, cannot be done economically because of the lack of sugar factories in the vicinity. Where the loess has the quality of clay, clay pits and, as a result, brickworks could develop, but these mostly no longer exist today. The Lübbecker Loessland is one of the more attractive loess landscapes in Germany, because in contrast to the more monotonous and cleared Börden landscapes around Magdeburg or Cologne, the densely wooded Wiehengebirge in the south or the moor-rich Geest area of the Rahden-Diepenauer Geest in the north are nowhere really far away. The landscape looks extremely varied in a small space, so that it is hardly surprising that z. B. Bad Holzhausen or Börninghausen, some of the few state-approved climatic health resorts in North Rhine-Westphalia, can be found here, of all places.
Due to the relatively large gradient described above, the use of hydropower has been favored since ancient times, but the limited water flow of the streams again had a limiting effect, as these mostly only have a small catchment area. After all, z. B. in Lübbecke in 1750 operated no fewer than five watermills as part of the Ronceva . Today, however, the use of hydropower no longer plays a decisive role. After all, the possibility of using hydropower in principle was a decisive reason why cities and villages were able to prosper in a special way here and not elsewhere. The founding of the city of Lübbecke, for example, has a close causal relationship with the existence of a watercourse capable of running water. (Lübbecke is derived from Hlidbeki, that is, "Little Bach").
traffic
As an early settled and therefore open stretch of land between the Wiehengebirge in the south and the moor in the north, the Lübbecker Loessland favored traffic in the east-west direction from an early stage. Today it is certain that the legions of the Roman general Varus , coming from the east, moved at the northern foot of the Wiehengebirge, i.e. through the Lübbecker Loessland, before they were destroyed by the Germanic general Arminius near Venne . Due to the typical geography of the area, the Romans were encircled between swamp and mountain, which had a decisive influence on the outcome of the battle.
Later the Lübbecker Lößlandes went during the medieval highway Minden-Osnabrück . Today this corresponds to the western section of Bundesstraße 65 and mostly runs in the more northerly, flatter part through the Lübbecker Loessland and connects the Osnabrück area with that of Minden.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
- ↑ a b BfN profile Lübbecker Lößland ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Emil Meynen , Josef Schmithüsen (editor): Handbook of the natural spatial structure of Germany . Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Remagen / Bad Godesberg 1953–1962 (9 deliveries in 8 books, updated map 1: 1,000,000 with main units 1960).
- ^ A b Sofie Meisel: Geographical Land Survey: The natural space units on sheet 85 Minden. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1959. → Online map (PDF; 4.5 MB)
- ↑ a b Sofie Meisel: Geographical Land Survey: The natural spatial units on sheet 83/84 Osnabrück / Bentheim. Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1961. → Online map (PDF; 6.4 MB)
- ^ Heimatkreis Singkreis Ahlsen-Reineberg eV (Ed.): 700 years of Ahlsen. 1290 - 1990, Hille-Eickhorst, 1990, p. 47
Coordinates: 52 ° 17 ′ 51.2 ″ N , 8 ° 33 ′ 38.1 ″ E