The Drawehn is a partly wooded and partly agricultural region of hills in the northeastern part of the German state of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

, lying between the districts of

Lüneburg Lüneburg, officially the Hanseatic City of Lüneburg and also known in English as Lunenburg, is a town in the German Bundesland (Germany), state of Lower Saxony. It is located about southeast of another Hanseatic League, Hanseatic city, Hambur ...

and

Uelzen Uelzen (; ), officially the Hanseatic City of Uelzen (), is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the district of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a Hanseatic town and an independent municipality. Uelz ...

in the west and Lüchow-Dannenberg in the east. It is named after the Slavic tribe of the Drevani.

Definition

In the German federal system of natural geographic regions, the Drawehn forms the eastern end of the

Lüneburg Heath Lüneburg Heath (, ) is a large area of heath (habitat), heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen and is ...

(D28), the '' Ostheide'', bordering the neighbouring area of Wendland and Altmark (D29). From a cultural perspective the Drawehn is, however, largely oriented towards Wendland. Its precise boundary is not clear: the name is often used synonymously for the ridge known as the East Hanoverian End Moraine (''Osthannoverschen Endmoräne''). Then again it may refer only to its southern portion - the northern part being referred to as the ''Göhrde''. Sources from the 14th to the 16th century counted the entire upper and lower

geest Geest (, , ) is a type of landform, slightly raised above the surrounding countryside, that occurs on the plains of Northern Germany, the Northern Netherlands and Denmark. It is a landscape of sandy and gravelly soils formed as a glacial outw ...

west of the Jeetze plain and east of the Uelzen-Bevensen Bowl as well as the Dahlenburg Basin as the Drawehn. In this sense the term is defined as the main ridge of the East Hanoverian End Moraine including its foothills as well as the flatter eastern slopes to the fluviatile Lüchow plain. The northern end of the East Hanoverian End Moraine can be further subdivided into the ''Göhrde'' and ''Klötzie'' regions – with no clear cut transition or boundary. The ''Klötzie'' (also the ''Elbhöhen'' or "Elbe Heights") is the northern edge of the ridge, up to 70 metres high, which slopes steeply down to the glacial valley of the

River 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 ...

between

Hitzacker Hitzacker is a town in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Elbe, approx. 8 km north of Dannenberg, and 45 km east of Lüneburg. The 2007 population of Hitzacker was 4,982, and its po ...

and Neu Darchau. And '' Göhrde'' refers to the more or less wooded terrain of the Göhrde State Forest (rather than the administrative area) which is located on a rolling area of high ground on the northwest part of the ridge.

Formation

The old moraine landscape of Lower Saxony emerged in the course of four great

glacial A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

advances of the Scandinavian ice sheet 350,000 to 130,000 years ago – one during the Elster glaciation and three during the Saale glaciation. The glacier of the most recent, Weichselian glaciation only reached the northeastern edge of the present Elbe valley depression, so that the existing

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 ...

s beyond that point there were only affected

periglacial Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing and freezing, very often in areas of permafrost. The meltwater may refreeze in ice wedg ...

ly, for example in the shape of

solifluction Solifluction is a collective name for gradual processes in which a mass moves down a slope ("mass wasting") related to freeze-thaw activity. This is the standard modern meaning of solifluction, which differs from the original meaning given to i ...

over the frozen ground, by meltwater erosion and

sediment 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 ...

s or through wind-blown deposits of sand. The last two Saale glaciation advances in particular, the Drenthe II and the Warthe stadia, unfolded the East Hanonerian Terminal Moraine. It is therefore

geomorphologically Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand why ...

younger than the geest in western and central Lower Saxony, but clearly older than the young moraine landscapes in

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; ), also known by its Anglicisation, anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a Federated state, state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's States of Germany, sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpom ...

and

Ostholstein Ostholstein (; ) is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by (from the southwest and clockwise) the districts of Stormarn, Segeberg and Plön, the Baltic Sea and the city of Lübeck. Geographically, the district covers the vas ...

(= Baltic Uplands).

Sources and further information

*Klaus Duphorn & Ulrich Schneider: ''Zur Geologie und Geomorphologie des Naturparks Elbufer-Drawehn.'' – Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Hamburg (NF) 25 (1983): Mittelelbe und Drawehn - Lebensräume, Flora und Fauna im Hannoverschen Wendland. pp. 9-40. *Lisel Gillandt, Eckhard Grimmel & Johannes M. Martens: ''Naturräumliche Gliederung des Kreises Lüchow-Dannenberg aus biologischer Sicht.'' – Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Hamburg (NF) 25 (1983): Mittelelbe und Drawehn - Lebensräume, Flora und Fauna im Hannoverschen Wendland. pp. 133–150. *Wolfgang Jürries & Berndt Wachter (Hrsg.): ''Wendland-Lexikon, Band 1, A–K''. Schriftenreihe des Heimatkundlichen Arbeitskreises Lüchow-Dannenberg, Band 12, Lüchow 2000 (2. Aufl. 2008). *HB-Verlag (Hrsg.): ''Naturpark Elbufer-Drawehn.'' – Naturmagazin draußen, Heft 9 (1980), Hamburg. *Dieter Knabenschuh: ''Wendland, Elbufer, Drawehn.'' – FDNF Fahrradtouristik GbR, Gartow, 1997. *Hansjörg Küster: ''Geschichte der Landschaft in Mitteleuropa. Von der Eiszeit bis zur Gegenwart.'' – Verlag C. H. Beck, München, 1995/1999. *Richard Pott: ''Lüneburger Heide, Wendland und Nationalpark Mittleres Elbtal.'' – Kulturlandschaften Exkursionsführer, Ulmer-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1999. {{Mountain and hill ranges of Lower Saxony Hill ranges of Lower Saxony Regions of Lower Saxony Forests and woodlands of Lower Saxony