Elsterheide, in Sorbian Halštrowska hola (), is a municipality in the district of Bautzen, in

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The municipality is part of the recognized

Sorbian settlement area The Sorbian settlement area ( , , ; in Brandenburg officially ''Siedlungsgebiet der Sorben/Wenden'') commonly makes reference to the area in the east of Saxony and the South of Brandenburg in which the West Slavs, West Slavic people of the Sorbs ...

in Saxony.

Upper Sorbian Upper Sorbian (), occasionally referred to as Wendish (), is a minority language spoken by Sorbs in the historical province of Upper Lusatia, today part of Saxony, Germany. It is a West Slavic language, along with Lower Sorbian, Czech, Poli ...

has an official status next to German.

History

The municipality of Elsterheide was formed in 1995 by merging the former municipalities of Neuwiese, Sabrodt, Nardt, Klein Partwitz, Seidewinkel, Tätzschwitz, Bluno and Geierswalde. Within Prussian Silesia (

Province of Silesia The Province of Silesia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1742 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as ...

1815–1919 and 1938–41,

Province of Lower Silesia The Province of Lower Silesia (; Silesian German: ''Provinz Niederschläsing''; ; ) was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Province of Silesia. The capita ...

1919–38 and 1941–45), all of these municipalities were part of Landkreis Hoyerswerda. Within the

East German East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

Bezirk Cottbus Cottbus was a Administrative divisions of the German Democratic Republic, district () of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The administrative seat and main town was Cottbus. History The district was established, along with the othe ...

, they were part of Kreis Hoyerswerda. With

German unification The unification of Germany (, ) was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). It commenced ...

in 1990, they became part of

References

Populated places in Bautzen (district) {{Bautzen-geo-stub