Altes Land () is an area of land reclamation straddling parts of Lower Saxony and Hamburg. The region is situated from Hamburg on the southwestern riverside of the Elbe around the towns of Stade, Buxtehude, Jork and the Samtgemeinde of Lühe. In Hamburg it includes the quarters of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder. Altes Land is one of the Elbe Marshes.
The region – the biggest contiguous fruit-producing region in North Europe – extends over . 76.8% of the trees are , 12.7% are Cherry.
The fertile land led to the development of a culture dominated by farming. The villages are known as Marschhufendörfer, a special kind of village where the farmyards are set along a street with the land directly behind them. A characteristic feature is the richly decorated timber framing farmhouses with their elaborate gateways.
Etymology
The region's official
standard German name is
Altes Land, which means "old country". However,
Altes Land is a
mistranslation of the original Low Saxon
Olland, which originally had nothing to do with "old": It stems from the term
Holland - itself derived from
Holtland meaning
"Wooded Land". This is a reference to the area's original reclamation and colonisation by
Dutch people settlers. The first colonisation agreement goes back to 1113 and was drawn up during the time of Archbishop Friedrich I of Bremen. One of the municipalities of the
Altes Land is Hollern, a name which comes from
Holländer (German for the Dutch). However, the mistranslation of
Olland as
Altes Land has now come full circle, since most Low Saxon speakers today refer to the region as
dat Ole Land (literally “the old land”). There also is an
eponymous periodical.
Geography and history
The
Altes Land is divided into three "miles" (German
Meilen); the first, second and third miles. These miles are zones along the banks of the
Niederelbe river. The first mile, between the rivers Schwinge and Lühe, was first dyked and then settled in around 1140. The second mile is the area east of the first between the Lühe and the Este, an area which was dyked at the end of the 12th century. The third mile, called
Terra Nova (new land), between the Este and the Elbe, was only dyked at the end of the 15th century when the area was especially hard-hit by
.
As of 2008 tourism plays a major role in the local economy, particularly during the cherry blossom and apple blossom seasons. However, parts of the orchard plantations are slowly being displaced by residential developments. Many of these new homes are then sold or rented to who work in nearby Hamburg.
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