The Lower Saxon Hills () are one of the 73

natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and ...

s in Germany defined by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). Geographically it covers roughly the same area as the Weser Uplands () in its wider sense.However at least one source, Elkins (1968), uses the term to refer to the outcrops of rock to the north, west and southwest of the

Harz The Harz (), also called the Harz Mountains, is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' der ...

which roughly corresponds to the eastern half of the BfN's region and extends only as far as the area between the rivers

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...

and Leine. The region is part of Germany's

Central Uplands The Central UplandsDickinson (1964), p.18 ff. (N.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 ''-gebirge'' = "range").) ...

with hills ranging up to in height that extend across northeast

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

, southern

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 ...

and northern

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

. It is classified as region number D 36 by the BfN; its full name being the ''Niedersächsisches Bergland (mit Weser- und Leine-Bergland'' (Lower Saxon Hills, including the Weser and Leine Hills). D 36 is a newly defined region that incorporates 3 geographical units from the old system: numbers 36, 37 and 53, and includes all parts of the Weser Uplands (''Weserbergland'') in both its narrower and a wider sense. That said, all three elements of the region, despite their misleading names, cover far more than is generally meant in everyday language or in atlases by the term ''Weserbergland''. In addition the Weser-Leine Hills sub-division (37) includes the whole of the Leine Uplands (''Leinebergland''), whilst the

mountains, admittedly are only partly in Lower Saxony, are clearly older in geological time scale and have been given their own natural region (D37) rather than being grouped with the lower Saxon Hills.

Natural divisions

The following tables show the landscape sub-divisions in the Lower Saxon Hills.
Those regions which are normally considered part of the Weser Uplands in its narrower sense are indicated by (W); similarly the which are normally included in the Leine Uplands are annotated with (L): *37 Weser-Leine Uplands

References

Literature

* * {{Coord, 52, 0, 0, N, 9, 0, 0, E, type:mountain_dim:25000_region:DE, display=title Natural regions of the Central Uplands Central Uplands Regions of Lower Saxony Regions of North Rhine-Westphalia