| Native name | Sächsisches Bergland und Mittelgebirge |
|---|---|
| Classification | Natural regions of the Free State of Saxony |
| Natural region | Saxon Highlands and Uplands |
| State(s) | Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
The Saxon Highlands and Uplands (German: Sächsisches Bergland und Mittelgebirge) refer to a natural region mainly in the south of Saxony with small elements also in southeast Thuringia and northeast Bavaria. It comprises, from (south)west to (north)east, of the Vogtland, the Ore Mountains, Saxon Switzerland, the Upper Lusatian Plateau and the Zittau Hills.
The amalgamation of several major geographical units by the working group for Ecological balance and Regional Character at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, that includes a break-up of the old natural region of Oberlausitz, has not been fully recognised officially, because this division has not yet been accepted by federal authorities like the Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN), but does broadly follow the logic of other groupings such as that of the Thuringian-Franconian Upland which border it to the west and includes the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland, Franconian Forest and Fichtel Mountains.
Whilst the Thuringian-Franconian Upland, like the adjacent Upper Palatine-Bavarian Forest run from northwest to southeast, these low Saxon mountains generally run from west-southwest to east-northeast. The Vogtland, whose German section lies mainly in the natural region in the Free State of Saxony that gives it its name, forms the actual link to the Thuringian-Franconian Upland.
The new internal subdivisions of the Ore Mountains have since been adopted by the BfN.