Lüneburg Heath

Lüneburg Heath is a large area of heath, geest and woodland in north-eastern Lower Saxony, forming part of the hinterland of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, and named after the town of Lüneburg. Most of it is a nature reserve, and Northern Low Saxon is still widely spoken across the region. The heath is not natural but the product of centuries of grazing and cutting, and it is kept that way deliberately, by sheep. The breed that does it is the Heidschnucke, a moorland sheep, and the heath survives as a historic cultural landscape because of it.