The (), occasionally Sieben Mountains or Seven Mountains, are a hill range of the German
Central Uplands
The Central UplandsDickinson (1964), p.18 ff. (german: die MittelgebirgeN.B. In German die ''Mittelgebirge'' (plural) refers to the Central Uplands; das ''Mittelgebirge'' refers to a low mountain range or upland region (''Mittel'' = "medium" and ...
on the east bank of the Middle Rhine, southeast of
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
.
Description
The area, located in the municipalities of Bad Honnef and Königswinter, consists of more than 40 hills. The hills are of ancient
volcanic
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...
origin and came into being between 28 and 15 million years ago. Much of the territory covered by Sieben Hills belongs to the Sieben Hills Nature Park (''Naturpark Siebengebirge''), which is under environmental protection.
The highest peak is the Ölberg at 460 metres above sea level. It is a popular
tourist
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...
destination for hiking, because of its natural environment.
Hills
The seven most important hills:
*
Großer Ölberg
The Großer Ölberg (also: ''Oelberg''), at 460 metres above sea level, is the highest hill in the Siebengebirge range in Germany. It is located in the borough of Königswinter near the village of Ittenbach and south of a subpeak known as the '' ...
(460 m)
* Löwenburg (455 m)
* Lohrberg (435 m)
* Nonnenstromberg (335m)
*
Petersberg Petersberg may refer to:
* The Hotel Petersberg near Bonn, the site of the
** Petersberg Agreement, 1949, regarding the international status of West Germany.
** Petersberg tasks, 1992 and 1997, regarding European security cooperation. Also known as ...
(331 m, Former name: ''Stromberg'')
* Wolkenburg (324 m)
* Drachenfels (321 m)
Other hills:
* Himmerich (366 m)
* Trenkeberg (430 m)
* Weilberg (297 m)
* Stenzelberg (287 m)
* Broderkonsberg (378 m)
* Mittelberg (353 m)
* Leyberg (359 m)
* Jungfernhardt (320 m)
* Geisberg (324 m)
* Schallenberg (310 m)
* Großer Breiberg (313 m)
* Kleiner Breiberg (288 m)
* Wasserfall (338 m)
* Kleiner Ölberg (332 m)
* Limperichsberg
* Scharfenberg
* Zickelburg (182 m)
Origin name
Although some sources translate the name literally as ''Seven Hills'', where ''sieben'' is modern German for "seven" and a ''Gebirge'' is a hill range, alternative derivations for the name have been suggested. Three theories exist:
# The oldest name was not ''Siebengebirge'', but ''Sieben Berge'' (''septem montes'', seven hills). Depending on the viewpoint near the river Rhine, one notices almost exactly seven hills, which are not always the same and not even the highest. Also, the number seven used to denote an arbitrary amount of items, was connected to magic and thus had a highly symbolic meaning. This makes it an obvious name for an area that was said to be sinister and impenetrable before the 19th century.
# The word ''sieben'' is derived from the word ''
siefen
''Siepen'', ''Siefen'', ''Seifen'' or ''Seipen'' are typical regional words used in northwestern Germany for what are often narrow, wet, ravine-like V-shaped valleys of the German Central Uplands with their small headstreams. In the south German ...
'' which, in turn comes from the
Middle Low German
Middle Low German or Middle Saxon (autonym: ''Sassisch'', i.e. " Saxon", Standard High German: ', Modern Dutch: ') is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented i ...
word ''sîpe'' "wet depression" or "little stream, brook", the verb ''sîpen'' means "trickle, drip".See the entry siepen ' in the
Deutsches Wörterbuch
The ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (; "The German Dictionary"), abbreviated ''DWB'', is the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of the German language in existence.