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The Teutoburg Forest ( ; ) is a range of low, in the Germany states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the 17th century, the official name of the hill ridge was Osning. It was first renamed the Teutoburg Forest in 1616 in commemoration of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, which most likely took place at Kalkriese instead.
The geologically oldest ridge is the northeastern one, which consists of limestone of the Triassic.
Most of the ridges and part of the valley are covered by deciduous forest. Parts of the valley areas are used for agriculture, especially the production of cereals.
The highest elevation in the Southern Teutoburg Forest is the Velmerstot () south of Horn-Bad Meinberg. In the Northern Teutoburg Forest the highest elevation is the Dörenberg () north of Bad Iburg.
The river Ems has its source at the western base of the southernmost portion of the Teutoburg Forest.
The southern half of the range, situated about southwest of the Weser valley, is part of the watershed between the Ems basin in the west and the Weser basin in the east. The drainage towards the Weser is affected by the Werre river. The northwestern half of the range is drained to the river Ems on both sides.
The neighboring landscapes are the Westphalian Lowland in the west, Hase valley in the north, the hilly Ravensberg Basin in the northeast, Lippe Uplands in the east, and Egge Range () in the south.
Except for a short area south of Osnabrück, which belongs to the Bundesland of Lower Saxony, the whole forest is part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
A long-distance hiking trail called Hermannsweg runs for along the length of the Teutoburg Forest, from Rheine in Münsterland to Leopoldstal near Horn-Bad Meinberg.
The Teutoburg Forest was also the scene of some fighting at the very end of the Second World War. Lieutenant Ralph Elliott of the Manchester Regiment – a noted Australian scholar in later life – was severely wounded in combat in the Teutoburg Forest, and nearly died before being rescued several hours later."REL34679 – University of St Andrews medallion for Honours English, 1947–48 : R W V Elliott". Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 20 August 2010.
The Teutoburg Forest is composed of two separate :
A monumental statue of Arminius commemorating the battle, known as the Hermannsdenkmal (the "Hermann monument"), was erected on the hill of Grotenburg near Detmold, close to the site where the most popular theory of the time placed the battle. Emperor William I, the first Kaiser of the unified German Empire, dedicated the monument in 1875. In order to create a nationalism landscape the Osning Hills were given the name "Teutoburg Forest", see also Teutons. The first to use that name had been historian and geographer Philipp Clüver in 1616, later it became more common when Ferdinand of Fürstenberg used it in his history and had it printed on maps. However, the old name survived among the local population and the part of the ridge around the Ebberg () near Bielefeld is still known as the Osning today.
The composer Johannes Brahms liked to take walks in this forest during his stay in Detmold.
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