North German Plain

Categories: Geography of Germany

The North German Plain is a lowland region extending from the North Sea and Baltic Sea southward to the uplands of central Germany. It lies at the heart of the Great European Plain, which extends from central Russia in the east to Belgium and France in the west.

Much of the North German Plain lies less than 100 meters above sea level. On the North Sea coast, the plain is very flat and composed mostly of marshes and mud flats. The offshore East Frisian Islands and North Frisian Islands are considered an extension of the North German Plain that was separated from the mainland after floods during the Middle Ages.

Along the Baltic coast, the plain meets the sea as jagged chalk cliffs that formed during periods of glaciation. The plain is sandy by the shoreline, and inland it is marked by bogs and moorlands. Off the coast near Stralsund lies Rügen, which is Germany's largest island.

The Länder of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Berlin, much of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, and parts of Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are located in this region.

During the cold war, the North German Plain was considered an alternative Warsaw Pact attack/invasion route into West Germany and ultimately into Western Europe. The most likely route for the Warsaw Pact forces to attack through would have been the Fulda Gap.de:Norddeutsche Tiefebene