Deutschland,¹ Begië/ Belgique,² Nederland,³ Luxembourg/ Luxemburg/ Lëzebuerg and Danmark⁴

How is the land laid out?

This part of northwest Europe comprises 476 thousand square kilometers. By average height, three zones can be distinguished. First is the coastal lowland, extending from western and northern Belgium, across Nederland and northern Deutschland, and including all of Danmark. These lowlands range from very flat, to dune-fringed, to glaciated--with moraines and lakes. They also include numerous islands such as those in the deltas of Nederland, or the Frisian fringing islands divided among three countries, or the large islands that make up much of Danmark.

The second zone is central highlands: a mix of steep slopes, sometimes flat crests, hills and low mountains, generally below 1,000 meters. These include the Ardennes, extending from France through southeastern Belgium; the Black Forest⁵, in southwestern Deutschland; the Harz⁶ in north central Deutschland; the Erzgebirge, along the လesko⁷ boundary; the Rhenish Slate Mountains, a plateau⁸ surrounding the Rhine⁹ River's middle course; and the Odenwald and Spessart in west central Germany.

The last zone is the Alps in southern Germany, which reach nearly 3,000 meters at the Swiss border.

The important sea-flowing rivers from west to east are: the Meuse¹⁰, the Scheldt,¹¹ the Rhine,¹² the Ems, the Weser, the Elbe and the Oder.¹³ Southeastern German is the source of the Danube,¹⁴ which flows across Europe to the Black Sea.

The Meuse enters from France and flows north through the western Ardennes across Belgium and into the Netherlands, where it enters the Rhine's delta. Its most important local tributary is the Sambre, which also enters Belgium from France.

The Scheldt enters from France and flows across northwestern Belgium into the southwest of the Netherlands to reach the North Sea.

The Rhine enters from Helvetia¹⁵ at the Bodensee¹⁶, and follows the German border west, then north-northeast. It crosses west central Germand and the southern Netherlands to arrive at the North Sea. The Neckar flows through southwestern Germany and enters the Rhine on the right. The Main bisects Germany as it flows west to meet the Rhine downstream from the Neckar and on the same bank. The Moselle comes from France and follows the Luxembourg-German border for a while before joining the Rhine on the left. The Ruhr flows along part of the north edge of the highlands to join the Rhine on the right. The Main is connected to the Danube by canal.

The Ems flows north through northwestern Germany to the North Sea. It is connected to the Ruhr by canal.

The Weser flows north from the center of Germany to the North Sea.

The Elbe¹⁷ enters from the လesko Republic and flows north-northwest across eastern Germany. Its tributaries include the Saale on the left and the Spree on the right. It is connected to the Ems by a canal that crosses the Weser.

The Oder enters from Polska¹⁸ and follows the German-Polish border north toward the Baltic Sea.

The most important true lakes¹⁹ are the Bodensee and, in northeast Germany, Muritz.

There is a large natural gas field near Groningen in Nederland.

Who lives there?

The combined population of the area is 115 million (2007). About two in three speak High German dialects²⁰ and more than three in 20 speak Low Franconian dialects like Dutch²¹.

More than eight in ten are Christian, with slightly more Protestants than Roman Catholics. More than three in 20 are unaffiliated--non-observant, agnostic or aetheist, almost all of them of Christian descent.

There are 21 metropolitan areas with more then one million residents. See the list of German, Danish, Dutch and Belgian cities.

Map

Who was there before?

The world's first known spears came from Schöningen (400 thousand years ago).²²

Indo-Europeans moved into the area by the first millenium B.C.E.; the primary dialect groups or proto-languages were Continental Celtic, which was spoken from the Benelux area across southern Germany, and Germanic near the mouths of the Elbe and Oder, and possibly further south, and quite probably in the Danish peninsula and islands. Continental Celtic gave way to West Germanic expansion westward by 500 C.E. By 800 C.E. High German, Low German (including Old Franconian, the ancestor of Dutch) and Frisian were distinct. Frisians assimulated other tribes who moved across the seas to England, where the language evolved into English. Further north, Old Norse's eastern dialects split into Swedish--beyond this area--and Danish. As Germans established trading colonies (the Hansa enclaves), Danish came under Low German influence.

But the Germanic hegemony was not uninterrupted. Some challenges were brief incursions (or pass-throughs): the Alans²³, the Avars²⁴ and the Huns. The resistence to the last left traces in pre-Christian German legends. More persistent was the Slavic influence. They pushed westward to at least the Elbe. There are still some speakers of the two Sorbian languages near Cottbus (Chosebuz) and Bautzen (Budysin).

Religion also changed. Early Celtic and Germanic religions had elements in common with other Indo-European groups: a connection with a word for sky with the word for god, for example. Celts had a druid (priest) class and communicated with chthonic elements through ritual pits. Their thunder god, Taranos, has an analog in the Germans' Donar. Later pre-Christian Germans had two god groups: the Aesir (Tyr, Odinn and Thor) and the Vanir (Njord, Freyr and Freyja). Christianity spread from contact with the Roman Empire, and initially took the Alexandrian (Arian) form. Persecutions and conversions established the Orthodox form, which gave way formally to the Roman Catholic form in 800 C.E., and then to the Protestant form in part of this area, after catastrophic sectarian wars that ended, for the most part, in 1648. Jews moved into the area from the former Roman Empire, and withstood terrible persecutions such as those accompanying the Crusades. More Jews arrived in the Lowlands, fleeing Spanish Christian hate. But their numbers throughout the area were vastly reduced by genocide and flight from it in the 20th century.

Aetheism and non-observance gained in two ways: through the anti-religious philosophy promulgated by Karl Marx of Germany, and through the older ideology of modernism. The latter's influence has endured relatively better due to the statist intollerance of the former, and due to Marxism's implication in Russian hegemony over eastern Germany.

The mathematician, Bernhard Riemann was born in a small place near Hannover before moving elsewhere in Germany to establish his claim to fame. Several other noted mathematicians were born or worked in larger cities in the area.

The area has numerous World Heritage Sites:

There are major commodity ports at Antwerpen, at and near Rotterdam (Randstad metropolitan area), and at Hamburg.

River scene, Upper Middle Rhine valley

Around the area

northwest of peninsular Denmark
east of peninsular Denmark and north of Sjaelland
east of Sjaelland
south of Sjaelland and north of Germany
east of northern Germany
east and south of southern Germany
west of southern Germany and southwest of central Germany and the Benelux
northwest of Belgium, the Netherlands and northwestern Germany; and west of peninsular Denmark

Other broad topics

Denmark and its possessions
Netherlands and its possessions

Footnotes

1. Germany in English
2. Begium in English. The official name is in the two official languages.
3. The Netherlands in English. The name means low land.
4. Denmark in English.
5. Schwarzwald in German.
6. Includes the Thüringer Wald (Thuringian Forest), although these are south of the rest of the Harz.
7. Czeck in English.
8. Includes the Eifel, Hunsrück, Taunus, Westerwald and Rothaargebirge ranges.
9. Rhein in German, Rijn in Dutch and Rhin in French.
10. Maas in Dutch.
11. Schelde in Dutch and Flemmish, Escault in French. It splits into two distributaries.
12. Its distributaries include the Waal (shared by the Scheldt), the Lek and the Ijssel.
13. Odra in Polish
14. Donau in German. It is Europe's second longest river.
15. Switzerland in English, Schweiz in German, Svizzera in Italian and Suisse in French.
16. Also called Lake Constance.
17. Labe in Czech.
18. Poland in English.
19. There are also walled off sections of the North Sea in the Netherlands.
20. The important ones here are Standard German and Upper Saxon. Some consider them separate languages. Some consider Upper Saxon a West Middle German dialect. Some group all German dialects spoken in Germany as one language.
21. The other important ones are Limburgisch, Vlaams and Zeeuwss. Some consider them separate languages. They are in a dialect continuum with other Low German dialects.
22. Jack Calloner, gen. ed., 1001 Inventions That Changed the World (Quintessence, 2009).
23. Today's descendent language is Ossete, an Iranian languae of the Caucasus.
24. A North East Caucasian group.
25. For a list of locations see http://en.wikipedia.