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The Oker () is a river in Lower Saxony, Germany, that has historically formed an important political boundary. It is a left tributary of the River Aller, in length and runs in a generally northerly direction.
In the Goslar vicinity of Oker the river is seriously polluted with heavy metals from the as well as groundwater and surface runoff from the metal there.
From the village of Oker the River Oker flows away in a northeasterly direction to Vienenburg, where it is joined from the south by the Radau and then from the southeast by the Ecker. After these two confluences the river continues southeast past the Harly Forest, after which it bends north to flow through Schladen and Wolfenbüttel to Braunschweig. In south Braunschweig the Oker is dammed by the Eisenbüttel Weir. In the Bürgerpark shortly before Braunschweig's old town the Oker divides into the western and eastern bypass channels ( Umflutgraben) which circumnavigate the historic city centre at a slightly higher level. These channels were laid in the 16th century as the external moats of the town's defences. The actual course of the Oker through the centre of the town was covered and, today, runs through pipes emerging again north of the old town. The water level in the city area is controlled by the St. Peter's Gate Weir ( Petritorwehr) in the western and the "Wends Weir" ( Wendenwehr) in the eastern ditch. Following the merger of the two channels northwest of the city centre the Oker runs north of the district of in a culvert under the Mittelland Canal before it is joined by the Schunter from the east near Groß Schwülper. It then flows down to its mouth into the River Aller, which is located between Gifhorn and Celle at Müden.
The Bishopric of Halberstadt was likewise mediatised in 1803, and according to the Final Act of the 1815 Vienna Congress, the Oker was the eastern border of the Kingdom of Hanover with the Duchy of Brunswick and the Prussian Province of Saxony. When the Kingdom of Prussia annexed Hanover in 1866, it became the inner Prussian border between the provinces of Hanover and Saxony as well as the border, north of Börßum to Ohrum between the Province of Hanover in the west and the Duchy of Brunswick in the east. From 1945 to 1990 the Inner German border between East Germany and West Germany ran down the centre of the Oker between Wiedelah and Schladen, today between the German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony.
Since the Expo 2000 bridges over the Oker in Braunschweig and its surrounding area were artistically designed; after 2004 this was carried out as part of the Okerlicht project.
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