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 lar ...

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) ridges (including Hainich,

Dün The Dün is a hill chain in northwestern Thuringia, Germany. It runs west to east, and forms the northwestern edge of the Thuringian Basin. It separates the Thuringian Basin from the upper valley of the river Leine. Towards the east it cont ...

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, Dinge ...

, Hohe Schrecke,

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, Held ...

, Finne), and to the southwest by the

Thuringian Forest The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German), is a mountain range in the southern parts of the German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorge on its north-west side ...

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 ...

, Muschelkalk and Keuper were laid down. Below those lie the salt and gypsum layers of

Magnesian Limestone The Magnesian Limestone is a suite of carbonate rocks in north-east England dating from the Permian period. The outcrop stretches from Nottingham northwards through Yorkshire and into County Durham where it is exposed along the coast between ...

( Zechstein). 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 configu ...

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 and

Leipzig Bay The Leipzig BayDickinson (1964), p. 29.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 ...

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 ...

). 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 (1198/1928) * Großenehrich *

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. In January 2021 it absorbed the former municipalities Großenehrich and Wolfersch ...

/ Clingen (?/1353 and 860/1282) to the north, * Kindelbrück (775/1291) * Weißensee (?/1265) * Sömmerda (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 (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. Cal ...

(1179/1326) to the east, * Gebesee (786/1638) * Bad Tennstedt (772/1340) * Bad Langensalza (932/1212) in the centre *

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

(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") ...

were held by the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () is a dynasty of Germany, German monarch, kings, Prince Elector, 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 ...

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 The Ernestine duchies (), also known as the Saxon duchies (, although the Albertine appanage duchies of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz were also "Saxon duchies" and adjacent to several Ernestine ones), were a group of small states whose n ...

and the County of Schwarzburg; 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, ) constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: ...

, 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