The Thuringian Basin (german: Thüringer Becken) is a depression in the central and northwest part of

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

in Germany which is crossed by several rivers, the longest of which is the

Unstrut The Unstrut () is a river in Germany and a left tributary of the Saale. The Unstrut originates in northern Thuringia near Dingelstädt (west of Kefferhausen in the Eichsfeld area) and its catchment area is the whole of the Thuringian Basin. It ...

. It stretches about from north to south and around from east to west. Its height varies from about 150 to . The Basin is surrounded by a wide outer girdle of limestone (

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million ye ...

) ridges (including

Hainich Hainich is a forested hill chain in the state of Thuringia in Germany, between the towns of Eisenach, Mühlhausen and Bad Langensalza. Hainich covers an area of around 160 km² (61,8 sq mi), of which, since 31 December 1997, half has b ...

, Dün,

Hainleite The Hainleite is a Muschelkalk ridge of hills up to in northern Thuringia, Germany. Geography This heavily wooded landscape lies between Bleicherode in Nordhausen district, Sondershausen in Kyffhäuser district, Bad Frankenhausen, Dingelst� ...

Hohe Schrecke The Hohe Schrecke is a ridge of hills in central Germany. It lies mainly within Thuringia; however, the southeastern part around Lossa belongs to the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Geography Together with the Schmücke, the Finne and the Hainleite, th ...

Schmücke The Schmücke is a ridge of hills in Thuringia, Germany. Geography Together with the Hohe Schrecke, the Finne and the Hainleite, the Schmücke borders the northern rim of the Thuringian Basin. It lies between Hauteroda, Oberheldrungen, Heldru ...

, Finne), and to the southwest by the Thuringian Forest and to the southeast by sharply divided terraces (the Ilm-Saale and Ohrdruf Muschelkalk plateaus, and the Saale-Elster Bunter sandstone plateau). The Thuringian Basin belongs to the

triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

period, during which horizontal beds of

Bunter sandstone The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Buntsands ...

and

Keuper The Keuper is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Keuper consists of dolomite, shales or claystones and evaporites that were deposited during the Middle and Late ...

were laid down. Below those lie the salt and gypsum layers of Magnesian Limestone (

Zechstein The Zechstein (German either from ''mine stone'' or ''tough stone'') is a unit of sedimentary rock layers of Middle to Late Permian (Guadalupian to Lopingian) age located in the European Permian Basin which stretches from the east coast of Englan ...

). In the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

era the surrounding ridges were uplifted, whilst the Thuringian Basin sank to form a saucer-shaped depression. The elevation of the Thuringian Basin descends from the south and west to the east. While some of the marginal ridges have the character of low mountain ranges, there are no really noteworthy uplands within it, apart from the Ettersberg and Fahnerscher Höhe. The Thuringian Basin is dominated by agriculture. Along with the

Magdeburg Börde The Magdeburg Börde (german: Magdeburger Börde) is the central landscape unit of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and lies to the west and south of the eponymous state capital Magdeburg. Part of a loess belt stretching along the southeastern rim of th ...

and Leipzig Bay it is one of the richest arable lands in Germany. It was settled in the 8th and 9th century which makes most of the villages and towns in the basin well over 1000 years old. As a result of the fertile countryside, large cities were established very early on in the Basin and on its perimeter (

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

and the

free imperial city In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...

Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...

). Other towns in the Thuringian Basin are (year of foundation and year of achieving town status in brackets): *

Schlotheim Schlotheim is a town and a former municipality in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated east of Mühlhausen. Since December 2019, it is part of the town Nottertal-Heilinger Höhen. Notable residents *Werner ...

(974/1277) *

Ebeleben Ebeleben is a town in the Kyffhäuserkreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 13 km southwest of Sondershausen Sondershausen is a town in Thuringia, central Germany, capital of the Kyffhäuserkreis district, situated about 50 ...

(1198/1928) *

Großenehrich Großenehrich is a town and a former municipality in the Kyffhäuserkreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 13 km south of Sondershausen, and 34 km northwest of Erfurt. Since January 2021 it is part of the town Greußen ...

Greußen Greußen is a town in the Kyffhäuserkreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 17 km southeast of Sondershausen, and 29 km north of Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thur ...

Clingen Clingen is a town in the Kyffhäuserkreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 16 km southeast of Sondershausen, and 30 km north of Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Th ...

(?/1353 and 860/1282) to the north, *

Kindelbrück Kindelbrück () is a municipality in the district of Sömmerda, in Thuringia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Rus ...

(775/1291) * Weißensee (?/1265) *

Sömmerda Sömmerda is a town near Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany, on the Unstrut river. It is the capital of the Sömmerda (district), district of Sömmerda. History Archeological digs in the area that is now Sömmerda, formerly Leubingen, have uncovered ...

(876/1350) *

Kölleda Kölleda (until 1927 Cölleda) is a small rural town in Thuringia. The municipality belongs to the district of Sömmerda and is located about ten kilometres east of the district town of Sömmerda on the edge of the Thuringian Basin. It is the thi ...

(786/1392) *

Rastenberg :''The Polish town of Kętrzyn was formerly known as Rastenburg.'' Rastenberg is a town in the district of Sömmerda, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 22 km east of Sömmerda, and 23 km northeast of Weimar. History Within the Germ ...

(1294/1412) * Buttstädt (?/1331) *

Buttelstedt Buttelstedt is a town and a former municipality in the Weimarer Land district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 11 km north of Weimar. Since 1 January 2019, it is part of the municipality Am Ettersberg. History Within the German Empire ...

(780/1454) *

Neumark The Neumark (), also known as the New March ( pl, Nowa Marchia) or as East Brandenburg (), was a region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and its successors located east of the Oder River in territory which became part of Poland in 1945. Calle ...

(1179/1326) to the east, *

Gebesee Gebesee is a town in the district of Sömmerda, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated near the confluence of the rivers Gera and Unstrut, 18 km northwest of Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state ...

(786/1638) * Bad Tennstedt (772/1340) * Bad Langensalza (932/1212) in the centre * Gotha (775/?) in the south Large parts of the Basin in the former Thuringian

Landgraviate Landgrave (german: Landgraf, nl, landgraaf, sv, lantgreve, french: landgrave; la, comes magnus, ', ', ', ', ') was a noble title used in the Holy Roman Empire, and later on in its former territories. The German titles of ', ' ("margrave"), a ...

were held by the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its ori ...

from 1264 and, after the 1485 Treaty of Leipzig, formed the Thuringian Circle of the Saxon Electorate. Smaller areas used to belong to the Wettin Ernestine duchies and the

County of Schwarzburg The House of Schwarzburg was one of the oldest noble families of Thuringia. Upon the death of Prince Friedrich Günther in 1971, a claim to the headship of the house passed under Semi-Salic primogeniture to his elder sister, Princess Marie Ant ...

; the city of Erfurt was a possession of the Mainz Archbishops. According to the 1815

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

, the Albertine and Mainz lands passed to the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...

, while the smaller areas on the northern and southern rim formed the Thuringian states.

References

External links

Geology: Information in the Thuringian Basin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thuringian Basin Natural regions of Germany Regions of Thuringia Basins of Germany