page_title: Lüneburg Heath
section_title: Nature parks and nature reserves
hierarchical_section_title: Lüneburg Heath / Nature / Nature parks and nature reserves
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte des Naturparks Lüneburger Heide in Deutschland
context_page_description: Lüneburg Heath is a large area of heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen and is named after the town of Lüneburg. Most of the area is a nature reserve. Northern Low Saxon is still widely spoken in the region.
  Lüneburg Heath has extensive areas of heathland, typical of those that covered most of the North German countryside until about 1800, but which have almost completely disappeared in other areas. The heaths were formed after the Neolithic period by overgrazing of the once widespread forests on the poor sandy soils of the geest, as this slightly hilly and sandy terrain in northern Europe is called. Lüneburg Heath is therefore a historic cultural landscape. The remaining areas of heath are kept clear mainly through grazing, especially by a North German breed of moorland sheep called the Heidschnucke. Due to its unique landscape, Lüneburg Heath is a popular tourist destination in North Germany.
context_section_description: In the northwestern part of Lüneburg Heath is the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park which covers an area of 1,130 square kilometres (440 sq mi). At its heart, around the Wilseder Berg, is the Lüneburg Heath Nature Reserve (Naturschutzgebiet or NSG) founded as long ago as 1921 with 234 square kilometres (90 sq mi) of land which is roughly 58% woods and 20% heathland. Other nature parks in the Lüneburg Heath region are the Südheide Nature Park and Elbufer-Drawehn Nature Park. Right in the north of the area is the Harburg Hills Nature Park. The Lüneburg Heath NSG, together with the open heathland of the huge Munster Nord and Süd training areas and the Bergen-Hohne Training Area, is the largest single area of heathland in Central Europe. And within the former province (Regierungsbezirk) of Lüneburg there are no less than 212 individual nature reserves (as at 31 December 2006).
caption: Location of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park
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