Artland (region)

For the collective municipality, see Artland.
The location of the historic landscape of Artland in Osnabrück Land

The Artland lies in the North German district of Osnabrück in the state of Lower Saxony and covers an area of around 180 km2 that, today, includes the collective municipality of Artland (which in turn consist of the municipalities of Quakenbrück, Badbergen, Menslage and Nortrup) as well as the municipality of Gehrde. When one refers to the Artland as a single landscape unit, it lies within an arc of ice age end moraine that today forms the Damme and Bippen Hills.

The Artland was never a political unit; its church parishes did not belong to the same Ämter in the Bishopric of Osnabrück. Rather it was economic, cultural and family ties that made the Artland a single entity. In the sparsely populated region today, between the meadows, fields and hedge-covered embankments (Wallhecken) typical of North German geestland, bushes and copses, there are more than 700, often protected, isolated, timber-framed farms.

The designation Artland for this countryside was first used in the year 1309.[1]

  1. ^ Kohnen: Die Herkunft des Namens Art-Land. In: Osnabrücker Land 1974, p. 49f.