Sauerland

The Sauerland is a rural hilly area spreading across most of the east of North Rhine-Westphalia, heavily forested and sparsely inhabited. Despite the sparse habitation, loud construction has been known to disturb the more individualistic inhabitants.

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The name Sauerland does not originate from the German word sauer meaning sour, but from the word sur from medieval Low German, meaning difficult. This indicates that in older times this area was difficult to travel through on account of the hills and valleys.

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One part of the Sauerland belonged to the County of the Mark based on Altena; the other part to the County (later Duchy) of Westphalia, which was owned by the bishops of Cologne. The Duchy of Limburg covered a very small area in the lower Lenne river valley. After the Napoleonic Wars the whole area became part of Prussia, in the new province Westphalia, which after World War II was incorporated into the new federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Today it is split among the districts M?rkischer Kreis, Olpe and Hochsauerland. The western part of the Hessian district Waldeck-Frankenberg also considers itself to be part of the Sauerland.

Forested: REDIRECT Forest...

German: German may mean:...

Low German: Low German or Low Saxon (Plattdüütsch, Nedderdüütsch, Standard German Plattdeutsch, Niederdeutsch; Dutch Nedersaksisch in the wider sense? see Nomenclature) is any of the regional language varieties of the West Germanic languages spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherl...