BRANDENBURG - Geography and history
The son of Albert the Bear, margrave Otto of Brandenburg, was the first to bear on his shield the red eagle symbolizing the rule of the Ascanians, and the chequered history of this Land has been played out under this heraldic animal. Brandenburg has existed in its present form only since October 1990, in an attempt to recreate the approximate boundaries of the territory as they appeared in 1952. It consists of the former Bezirke (administrative districts) of Potsdam, Frankfurt (Oder) and Cottbus minus the Kreise (districts) of Hoyerswerda, Jessen and Weisswasser, but with the addition of Perleberg, Prenzlau and Templin in the north. The Land borders on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the north, Poland in the east, Sachsen in the south and Sachsen-Anhalt in the west. It surrounds the Federal capital, Berlin.
Brandenburg is made up of 14 Landkreise (rural districts) and four kreisfreie Städte (towns constituting districts in their own right or urban districts). Following a territorial reform, there were 435 Gemeinde (municipalities) at the beginning of 2004. Brandenburg has a two-tier administrative structure, as it has no Regierungsbezirke (NUTS2 regions). In Brandenburg (and Sachsen) there is a Slavic minority, the Sorbs or Wends, which has its own language and culture. Potsdam, the regional capital, with its complex of palaces and parks - some of which feature on UNESCO's World Heritage List - is famous well beyond the boundaries of the Brandenburg region.
Covering a total surface area of 2.9 million hectares, Brandenburg is the fifth-largest region in the Federal Republic and the largest of the new Bundesländer. With 88 inhabitants per km2 the population density here is very low - just above Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 76. Half of the territory is agricultural land and a further 35% is forested.
Brandenburg is part of the North German Plain, which is bordered in the north and south by large terminal moraines. Rolling hills alternate with extensive plains; in the environs of the large original Warsaw-Berlin river valley in the centre of Brandenburg are pronounced low-lying areas. Brandenburg has a large number of ice-age lakes and loosely-formed chains of narrow ribbon lakes. Brandenburg has some of the most abundant water resources of all the Bundesländer, as these cover 2.3% of the surface area. It has a varied and attractive landscape interspersed with over 10 000 lakes and ponds, some 3 000 of which are of more than 1 ha, and approximately 32 000 km of watercourses. By utilising this abundance of water and the many hollows formed during the Ice Age, a large number of canals have been constructed over the years.
Brandenburg's transport route network links the region's large and medium-sized towns with each other and with the large German conurbations. The regional road network in 2002 totalled 12 500 km, made up of 800 km of federal motorways, 2 800 km of federal highways, 5 800 km of regional highways and 3 100 km of district or country roads. A large proportion of these are the magnificent avenues which typify Brandenburg's roads. Brandenburg's rail network covers 3 400 km, and the trains operating on it stop at 361 stations. Brandenburg has the longest and densest inland waterway network of all the eastern German Länder with some 1 200 km of Federal waterways and 500 km of regional waterways. It links the rivers Elbe and Oder to each other, and connects to the Rhine, the network of canals in western Germany and the North Sea and Baltic Sea ports. Commercial air transport in Brandenburg is centred on Berlin-Schönefeld international airport, which recorded around 26 000 landings and take-offs in 2002.
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