The Cham-Furth Depression or Všeruby Highlands (, ) is a

lowland Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland. Definitions Upland and lowland are portions of a ...

in the Upper Palatine-Bavarian Forest that separates the

Upper Palatinate Forest The Upper Palatine Forest ( or ''Böhmischer Wald''; , ) is a mountain range in Central Europe that is divided between the Czech Republic and Germany. It is a part of the larger Bohemian Massif and the German Central Uplands. Geography Th ...

from the

Bavarian Forest image:Zell-bayerischer-wald.jpg, The village of Zell in the Bavarian Forest The Bavarian Forest ( or ''Bayerwald'' ; ) is a wooded, low-mountain region in Bavaria, Germany, that is about 100 kilometres long. It runs along the Czech Republic, C ...

. At the same time it connects the

Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (; , , ) is an administrative district in the east of Bavaria, Germany. It consists of seven districts and 226 municipalities, including three cities. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and nume ...

with

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

. The German part has an area of 281 km², a length of 40 kilometres and a width of five to ten kilometres. The Czech part covers 206 km². The valley runs in a west-southwest-east northeast direction. It is divided into the

Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script * Cham Albani ...

basin in the west at a height of 360 to 400 metres, which extends from Roding roughly as far as Arnschwang, and the smaller Furth depression in the east, which extends to Bohemia at heights of 400 to 500 metres. The Furth valley is bounded in the east by the European watershed. Its highest point is Kameňák (''Steinwald'', 751 m) near Svatá Kateřina (''St. Katharina''). The geologically ancient depression is filled with

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 ...

and

alluvial Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

sediments Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

and drained by the rivers

Chamb The Chamb () is a river in Germany and the Czech Republic, a right tributary of the Regen (river), Regen River. It flows through Bavaria and Plzeň Region. It is long. Etymology The name is derived from the Celtic word ''kambos'', which transla ...

and

Regen Regen (; Northern Bavarian: ''Reng'') is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and the district town of the district of Regen. Geography Regen is situated on the great Regen River, located in the Bavarian Forest. Divisions Originally the town consiste ...

and their tributaries. These rivers

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

through the undulating, hilly region. In the Cham Basin,

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

es and

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

s predominate. In the Furth valley melanocratic rock of the

gabbro Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ch ...

amphibolite Amphibolite () is a metamorphic rock that contains amphibole, especially hornblende and actinolite, as well as plagioclase feldspar, but with little or no quartz. It is typically dark-colored and dense, with a weakly foliated or schistose ...

mass is dominant. The climate is warmer and drier than the surrounding mountains, but winters are relatively cold and often characterized by '' böhm'' winds from the east. The hilltops of the typically rural landscape are covered with islands of spruce and pine. While the Cham Basin has been inhabited almost continuously since the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

, the Furth valley was not fully developed until the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history between and ; it was preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended according to historiographical convention ...

Farming Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

dominates, followed by

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

use. The Cham-Furth Depression has always been an important communication route between Bavaria and Bohemia. Cham Castle, built around 976, guarded the eastern border of the Empire. The Bavarian-Bohemian border of the vast area has remained highly disputed throughout the early modern period, which led to different negotiations and agreements between the

kings of Bohemia The Duchy of Bohemia was established in 870 and raised to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198. Several Bohemian monarchs ruled as non-hereditary kings and first gained the title in 1085. From 1004 to 1806, Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire, a ...

and the dukes of Bavaria in 1564, 1580, and finally in 1764. Today the area is part of the Upper Bavarian Forest Nature Park.

External links

Cham-Furth Depression at bfn.de

Literature

* Volker Voggenreiter (1971). ″Geobotanische Untersuchungen in der Cham-Further Senke und ihren montanen Randhöhen″. In ''Hoppea. Denkschriften der Regensburgischen Botanischen Gesellschaft'', XXVIII. Vol. New series XXII, part II. Regensburg. * Taku Minagawa (2015). ″Border Conflicts between Bohemia and Bavaria and Their Solutions. Comparative Considerations.″ In Marco Bellabarba, Hannes Obermair, Hitomi Sato (eds.). ''Communities and Conflicts in the Alps from the Late Middle Ages to Early Modernity.'' (Fondazione Bruno Kessler. Contributi/Beiträge. 30). Bologna-Berlin: Il mulino—Duncker & Humblot. , pp. 73–90. {{Authority control Cham (district) Upper Palatinate Natural regions of the Upper Palatine-Bavarian Forest Landforms of the Czech Republic Geography of the Plzeň Region