The Thuringian Basin () is a depression in the central and northwest part of

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

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

Unstrut The Unstrut ( or ) 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 Ba ...

. 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"; ) is a sequence of sedimentary rock, sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 m ...

) ridges (including Hainich, 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, Dingel ...

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, also called the Kahle Schmücke, is a hill ridge up to and only about 7 km² in area.Area measurement usinGeopfade(kmz, 10 kB) It lies within the districts of Kyffhäuserkreis and Landkreis Sömmerda, Sömmerda in the Ger ...

, Finne), and to the southwest by the

Thuringian Forest The Thuringian Forest (''Thüringer Wald'' in German language, German ) is a mountain range in the southern parts of the Germany, German state of Thuringia, running northwest to southeast. Skirting from its southerly source in foothills to a gorg ...

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 ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

period, during which horizontal beds of Bunter sandstone,

and Keuper 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 Late Permian ( Lopingian) age located in the European Permian Basin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland. T ...

). In the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

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 (political), capital and largest city of the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the Gera (river), River Gera, in the so ...

and the free imperial city of

Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a town in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's Central Germany (geography)#Geographical centre, geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen ...

). Other towns in the Thuringian Basin are (year of foundation and year of achieving town status in brackets): * Schlotheim (974/1277) * Ebeleben (1198/1928) * Großenehrich * Greußen/ Clingen (?/1353 and 860/1282) to the north, * Kindelbrück (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 uncove ...

(876/1350) * Kölleda (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 Empir ...

(780/1454) *

Neumark The Neumark (), also known as the New March () 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 except some villages o ...

(1179/1326) to the east, * Gebesee (786/1638) * Bad Tennstedt (772/1340) *

Bad Langensalza Bad Langensalza (; until 1956: Langensalza) is a spa town of 17,500 inhabitants in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis, Unstrut-Hainich district, Thuringia, central Germany. Geography Location Bad Langensalza is located in the Thuringian Basin, the fe ...

(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 were held by the

House of Wettin The House of Wettin () was a dynasty which included Saxon monarch, kings, Prince Elector, prince-electors, dukes, and counts, who once ruled territories in the present-day German federated states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynas ...

from 1264 and, after the 1485

Treaty of Leipzig The Treaty of Leipzig or Partition of Leipzig (German ''Leipziger Teilung'') was signed on 11 November 1485 between Elector Ernest of Saxony and his younger brother Albert III, the sons of Elector Frederick II of Saxony from the House of Wettin. ...

, 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 numb ...

and the

County of Schwarzburg The House of Schwarzburg was one of the oldest noble families of Thuringia, which is in modern-day central Germany. Upon the death of Prince Friedrich Günther in 1971, a claim to the headship of the house passed under Semi-Salic primogeniture ...

; 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, Napol ...

, the Albertine and Mainz lands passed to the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, while the smaller areas on the northern and southern rim formed the

Thuringian states The Thuringian states () refers to the following German federal states within the German Reich: *The Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, officially the Grand Duchy of Saxony (''Großherzogtum Sachsen'') from 1903 *The duchies of Saxe-Altenbur ...

References

External links

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