Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony (: Niedersachsen; : Neddersassen; : Läichsaksen) is a (Land) in . It is the second-largest state by land area, with 47,614 km2 (18,384 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 Länder federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, and are still spoken, albeit in declining numbers.
Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the , the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, the state of Bremen forms two within Lower Saxony, one being the city of , the other its , (which is a , as it has a coastline). Lower Saxony thus borders more neighbours than any other single Bundesland. The state's largest cities are state capital , (Brunswick), , , , , , , and .
Lower Saxony is the only Bundesland that encompasses both maritime and mountainous areas. The northwestern area of the state, on the coast of the North Sea, is called and the seven offshore are popular with tourists. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the , an economically emerging but rather sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the , is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen . Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the : the and the Mountains. Between these two lie the , a range of low ridges.
Lower Saxony's major cities and economic centres are mainly situated in its central and southern parts, namely Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter, Hildesheim, and Göttingen. Oldenburg, near the northwestern coastline, is another economic centre. The region in the northeast, the (Lüneburger Heide), is the largest heathland area of Germany. In the Middle Ages, it was wealthy due to salt-mining and the salt trade, as well as, to a lesser degree, the exploitation of its , which went on until the 1960s. To the north the River separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Brandenburg. The banks just south of the Elbe are known as the (Old Country). Due to its gentle local climate and fertile soil, it is the state's largest area of fruit farming, its chief produce being .
Most of the state's territory was part of the historic , and the state of Lower Saxony has adopted the coat of arms and other symbols of the former kingdom. It was created by the merger of the with three smaller states on 1 November 1946.
== Mappers from Lower Saxony ==
Mapper	Mapper 	District 	Subscribers
Icon 	Mapper name	District name	Number of subscribers
== List of fictive nations located in Lower Saxony ==
Country	Country 	Capital	Population	Area in km²	Currency
 	Schaumburg-Lippe	 	75,190 	340 	
Category:Germany
Category:States of Germany
Category:Regions