The Petit Ried (occasionally referred to as Ried-Nord) is located in north-eastern Alsace. It stretches between the Robertsau Forest in Strasbourg in the south, and Lauterbourg in the north. It borders on Outre-Forêt . The Petit Ried shows a typical Ried landscape. It spreads over a narrow strip along the river Rhine . It is accessible thanks to the railway Strasbourg-Lauterbourg, as well as the motorway A35 between Hœrdt and Lauterbourg.
90-1146: In the Petit Ried, three rivers flow into the Rhine River: To the east, the Black Forest with the Hornisgrinde stands out against the horizon. The Vosges are more inconspicuous because they lie farther away, and are not as high as the Black Forest. The Petit Ried is densely populated, and is relatively rich, as many cross-border workers live there. Numerous sand and gravel pits (which are locally called Baggersee , as in nearby Germany ) are in operation (in La Wantzenau , Hoerdt and Offendorf for instance). Old pits are still used for recreational activities like bathing (in Reichstett , Bischheim and in Gambsheim , for instance) or diving. Two national nature reserves are located in
180-657: A "Prince of Swabia" and integrated the Shrievalty of Swabia in the realm of Further Austria . The Swabian League of Cities was first formed on 20 November 1331, when twenty-two imperial cities of the former Duchy of Swabia banded together in support of the Emperor Louis IV , who in return promised not to mortgage any of them to any imperial vassal . Among the founding cities were Augsburg , Heilbronn , Reutlingen , and Ulm . The counts of Württemberg , Oettingen , and Hohenberg were induced to join in 1340. The defeat of
270-506: A few decades of regulated forestry had ensured the regrowth of the raw material wood and when the forest-destroying potash extraction had become unnecessary due to the new glass flux soda, some glass huts ( Glashütten ) revived. Some glassblowing factories still testify to this today, for example in Höllental , near Todtnau and in Wolfach . Black Forest ham originated from this region, as did
360-526: A major wildlife corridor . Black Forest The Black Forest ( German : Schwarzwald [ˈʃvaʁt͡svalt] ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany , bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland . It is the source of the Danube and Neckar rivers. Its highest peak
450-651: A modified tripartite division, which combined natural and cultural regional approaches and was widely used. His Central Black Forest is bounded in the north by the watershed between the Acher and Rench and subsequently between the Murg and Kinzig or Forbach and Kinzig, in the south by the Bonndorf Graben zone, which restricts the Black Forest in the east as does the Freudenstadt Graben further north by its transition into
540-638: A number of granitic bodies during the Carboniferous period. Among the bigger ones are the Triberg Granite and the Forbach Granite , the youngest is the Bärhalde Granite. In the south lies the zone of Badenweiler-Lenzkirch, in which Palaeozoic rocks have been preserved (volcanite and sedimentary rocks), which are interpreted as the intercalated remains of a microcontinental collision. Still further in
630-507: A result of the anthropogenic elevation of the low-side lip of the cirque, such as the Mummelsee , Wildsee , Schurmsee , Glaswaldsee , Buhlbachsee , Nonnenmattweiher , and Feldsee . The Titisee formed as glacial lake behind a glacial moraine . The Black Forest is mainly rural, with many scattered villages and a few large towns. Tradition and custom are celebrated in many places in the form of annual festivities. The main dialect spoken in
720-618: Is a permanent feature of Alemannic Week, held annually in the Black Forest at the end of September. There are two nature parks and one national park named after the Black Forest that cover the region: the Southern Black Forest Nature Park , the Central/North Black Forest and the Black Forest National Park . The difference between a nature park and a national park is that a nature park's aim
810-518: Is a traditional cottage industry in the region, and carved ornaments now are produced in substantial numbers as souvenirs for tourists. Cuckoo clocks are a popular example. Glassblowing is another notable craft of the Black Forest region. At the beginning of the 15th century, the art of glassmaking took hold in the Bavarian-Bohemian border mountains, especially since the necessary raw materials such as quartz and wood were abundant here. With
900-616: Is covered in the east and northeast by Bunter Sandstone slabs, the so-called platforms. On the western edge a descending, step-fault -like, foothill zone borders the Upper Rhine Graben consisting of rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The dominant rocks of the basement are gneiss (ortho- and paragneisses, in the south also migmatites and diatexites, for example on the Schauinsland and Kandel). These gneisses were penetrated by
990-656: Is divided into six so-called major units (level 4 landscapes). This division was refined and modified in several successor publications (1:200,000 individual map sheets) up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was also divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Central Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and the Kniebis to near Freudenstadt. Its southern boundary varied with each edition. In 1998,
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#17328522443461080-578: Is known in the Black Forest region, occurs in the time leading up to Lent . On Fasnetmendig , or the Monday before Ash Wednesday , crowds of people line the streets, wearing wooden, mostly hand-carved masks. One prominent style of mask is called the Black Forest Style, originating from the Black Forest Region. The Black Forest is home to an unusual tarot card game called Cego , that is part of
1170-816: Is located. But the Rhine is still subjected to the needs of navigation. The starch manufacturer Roquette Frères in Beinheim is supplied with heat from the terrestrial heat plant in Rittershoffen . The dams in Gambsheim and Iffezheim produce electricity. In Gambsheim the French grid is fed, whereas the German grid is fed in Iffezheim. The biogas produced by the sewage plant in Strasbourg is fed into
1260-553: Is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres (4,898 ft) above sea level . Roughly oblong in shape, with a length of 160 kilometres (100 miles) and breadth of up to 50 km (30 mi), it has an area of about 6,009 km (2,320 sq mi). Historically, the area was known for forestry and the mining of ore deposits, but tourism has now become the primary industry, accounting for around 300,000 jobs. There are several ruined military fortifications dating back to
1350-432: Is to strive for environmentally sustainable land use , to preserve the countryside as a cultural landscape, to market local produce more effectively, to make the area more suitable for sustainable tourism and to practice environmental education . A national park's aims are to protect the country's natural heritage, to practice environmental education, to serve purposes of scientific environmental observation and to prevent
1440-603: The Alemannic German area, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the thirteenth century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography roughly coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the early modern period , now divided between the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg . Swabians ( Schwaben , singular Schwabe ) are
1530-909: The Baltic Sea the Mare Suevicum ("Suebian Sea") after the Suiones , and ends his description of the Suiones and Sitones with "Here Suebia ends" ( Hic Suebiae finis ). By the mid-3rd century, groups of the Suebi form the core element of the new tribal alliance known as the Alamanni , who expanded towards the Roman Limes east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes referred to as Suebi even at this time, and their new area of settlement came to be known as Suebia. In
1620-869: The Belchen (1,414 m). In general the mountains of the Southern or High Black Forest are higher than those in the Northern Black Forest. The highest Black Forest peak north of the Freiburg–Höllental–Neustadt line is the Kandel (1,241.4 m). Like the highest point of the Northern Black Forest, the Hornisgrinde (1,163 m), or the Southern Black Forest lookout mountains, the Schauinsland (1,284.4 m) and Blauen (1,164.7 m ) it lies near
1710-504: The Black Forest gâteau , which is also known as "Black Forest Cherry Cake" or "Black Forest Cake" and is made with chocolate cake, cream, sour cherries and Kirsch . The Black Forest variety of Flammekueche is a Baden specialty made with ham, cheese and cream. Pfannkuchen , a crêpe or crêpe-like ( Eierkuchen or Palatschinken ) pastry, is also common. The Black Forest is known for its long tradition in gourmet cuisine. No fewer than 17 Michelin starred restaurants are located in
1800-704: The Black Sea drainage basin (drained by the Danube). The longest Black Forest rivers are (length includes stretches outside the Black Forest): Important lakes of natural, glacial origin in the Black Forest include the Titisee , the Mummelsee and the Feldsee . Especially in the Northern Black Forest are a number of other, smaller tarns . Numerous reservoirs like the – formerly natural but much smaller – Schluchsee with
1890-654: The British Royal Family that has ruled since 1714. Smaller feudal dynasties eventually disappeared, however; for example, branches of the Montforts and Hohenems lived until modern times, and the Fürstenberg survive still. The region proved to be one of the most divided in the empire, containing, in addition to these principalities, numerous free cities , ecclesiastical territories, and fiefdoms of lesser counts and knights . A new Swabian League ( Schwäbischer Bund )
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#17328522443461980-668: The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park between the cities of Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden and covers an area of 10,062 ha. Its motto is "Natur Natur sein lassen" (let nature be nature). In addition to the characteristic range of fauna found in Central European forests, the following less common animals may be observed in the Black Forest: The mountain range has lower temperatures and higher rainfall than its surrounding countryside. The highlands of
2070-567: The Franconian War . The Reformation caused the league to be disbanded in 1534. The territory of Swabia as understood today emerges in the early modern period. It corresponds to the Swabian Circle established in 1512. The Old Swiss Confederacy was de facto independent from Swabia from 1499 as a result of the Swabian War , while the Margraviate of Baden had been detached from Swabia since
2160-589: The Great Interregnum . In the following years, the original duchy gradually broke up into many smaller units. Rudolf I of Habsburg , elected in 1273 as emperor, tried to restore the duchy, but met the opposition of the higher nobility who aimed to limit the power of the emperor. Instead, he confiscated the former estates of the Hohenstaufen as imperial property of the Holy Roman Empire, and declared most of
2250-584: The Gutach . A pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. Based on that, the Central Black Forest is bounded by the Kinzig in the north and the line from Dreisam to Gutach in the south, corresponding to the Bonndorf Graben zone and the course of the present day B 31 . In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed
2340-764: The Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as sovereign states. Much of Eastern Swabia became part of Bavaria , forming what is now the Swabian administrative region of Bavaria. The Kings of Bavaria assumed the title Duke in Swabia , with the in indicating that only parts of the Swabian territory was ruled by them, unlike their other title Duke of Franconia which made clear that
2430-639: The Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (which, from a natural region perspective, also includes the low chain of foothills); in the east it transitions to the Gäu , Baar and hill country west of the Klettgau . From north to south, the Black Forest extends for over 160 km (100 mi), attaining a width of up to 50 km (30 mi) in the south and 30 km (20 mi) in
2520-773: The Oos to Baden-Baden , the middle reaches of the Bühlot above Bühls and the upper reaches of the Rench around Oppenau . Their exit valleys from the mountain range are all oriented towards the northwest. The Central Black Forest (153) is mainly restricted to the catchment area of the River Kinzig above Offenburg as well as the Schutter and the low hills north of the Elz . The Southeastern Black Forest ( Südöstliche Schwarzwald , 154) consists mainly of
2610-677: The Vosges Mountains in the west to the broad Lech river in the east: Like all of Southern Germany , what is now Swabia was part of the La Tène culture , and as such has a Celtic (Gaulish) substrate. In the Roman era, it was part of the Raetia province. The name Suebia is derived from that of the Suebi . It is used already by Tacitus in the 1st century, albeit in a different geographical sense: He calls
2700-411: The migration period , the Suebi (Alamanni) crossed the Rhine in 406 and some of them established the Kingdom of the Suebi in Galicia. Another group settled in parts of Pannonia , after the Huns were defeated in 454 in the Battle of Nedao . The Alemanni were ruled by independent kings throughout the 4th to 5th centuries but fell under Frankish domination in the 6th ( Battle of Tolbiac 496). By
2790-433: The 17th century. In ancient times, the Black Forest was known as Abnoba mons , after the Celtic deity, Abnoba . In Roman times ( Late antiquity ), it was given the name Silva Marciana ("Marcynian Forest", from the Germanic word marka , "border"). The Black Forest probably represented the border area of the Marcomanni ("border people") who were settled east of the Roman limes . They, in turn, were part of
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2880-483: The Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection (today the Baden-Württemberg State Department for the Environment, Survey and Nature Conservation) published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg. It is restricted to the level of the natural regional major units and has been used since for the state's administration of nature conservation: The Black Forest Foothills ( Schwarzwald-Randplatten , 150) geomorphologically form plateaux on
2970-411: The Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 1,800–2,100 mm. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier;
3060-414: The Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains. The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around
3150-427: The Black Forest area is Alemannic . The forest is best known for its typical farmhouses with their sweeping half-hipped roofs , its Black Forest gâteaus , Black Forest ham , Black Forest gnomes , Kirschwasser and the cuckoo clock . Traditional costume or Tracht is still sometimes worn today, usually at festive occasions. The appearance of such costume varies from region to region, sometimes markedly. One of
3240-442: The Black Forest to paint his landscapes. The works of the Gutach artist colony around Wilhelm Hasemann were widely admired, their landscape and genre motifs capturing the character of the Black Forest. Like local author Heinrich Hansjakob, they were part of a Baden folk costume movement. In the field of handicrafts, wood carving produces folk art like the Longinus crosses along with sculptors like Matthias Faller . Wood carving
3330-404: The Black Forest to the east and the Vosges to the west. In the centre lies the Kaiserstuhl volcano , which dates to the Miocene . In the times that followed, the Mesozoic platform on the uplands was largely eroded, apart from remains of Bunter Sandstone and Rotliegend Group , but it has survived within the graben itself. During the Pliocene a pronounced but uneven bulge especially affected
3420-401: The Black Forest; morphologically, geologically and climatically it is separate from the other parts of the Southern Black Forest and, in this classification, is also counted as part of the High Black Forest. At 1,493 m above sea level (NHN) the Feldberg in the Southern Black Forest is the range's highest summit. Also in the same area are the Herzogenhorn (1,415 m) and
3510-419: The Duke of Württemberg was soon restored. The region was quite divided by the Reformation. While secular princes such as the Duke of Württemberg and the Margrave of Baden-Durlach , as well as most of the Free Cities, became Protestant , the ecclesiastical territories (including the bishoprics of Augsburg , Konstanz and the numerous Imperial abbeys ) remained Catholic , as did the territories belonging to
3600-428: The French gas network. There are tourism offices in Gambsheim , Soufflenheim , Seltz and Lauterbourg . Soufflenheim is renowned for its coloured Alsatian potteries. In Offendorf a barge houses the inland water shipping Museum. The Gambsheim locks are equipped with France's largest sluices. The Haguenau Forest plays an important role, as a link between the Northern Vosges and the Petit Ried. It constitutes as such
3690-420: The Germanic tribe of Suebi , who subsequently gave their name to the historic state of Swabia . With the exception of Roman settlements on the perimeter (e.g. the baths in Badenweiler, and mines near Badenweiler and Sulzburg ) and the construction of the Roman road of Kinzigtalstraße , the colonization of the Black Forest was not carried out by the Romans but by the Alemanni . They settled and first colonized
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3780-436: The Habsburgs ( Further Austria ), the Sigmaringen branch of the House of Hohenzollern , and the Margrave of Baden-Baden . In the wake of the territorial reorganization of the empire of 1803 by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss , the shape of Swabia was entirely changed. All the ecclesiastical estates were secularized, and most of the smaller secular states, and almost all of the free cities, were mediatized , leaving only
3870-421: The High Black Forest as well as the main ridge of the Northern Black Forest. Apart from that, it is only discernible from a large number of cirques mainly facing northeast. Especially in this direction snow accumulated on the shaded and leeward slopes of the summit plateau to form short cirque glaciers that made the sides of these funnel-shaped depressions. There are still tarns in some of these old cirques, partly
3960-403: The Middle Eocene a rifting period affected the area and caused formation of the Upper Rhine Plain . During the last glacial period of the Würm glaciation , the Black Forest was covered by glaciers; several tarns (or lakes) such as the Mummelsee are remains of this period. The geological foundation of the Black Forest is formed by the crystalline bedrock of the Variscan basement. This
4050-414: The Northern Black Forest. The Handbook of the Natural Region Divisions of Germany published by the Federal Office of Regional Geography ( Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde ) since the early 1950s names the Black Forest as one of six tertiary-level major landscape regions within the secondary-level region of the South German Scarplands and, at the same time, one of nine new major landscape unit groups. It
4140-409: The Petit Ried, more precisely: Both dams in Iffezheim (D) and in Gambsheim (F) are equipped with a fish pass. In Gambsheim, it is possible to observe fish migration in a small museum. Downstream of Beinheim , there are no more dams, which explains why the zone between Beinheim and Lauterbourg is so interesting from an environmental point of view. This is the place where the Sauer Delta Nature Reserve
4230-422: The Southern Black Forest Plateau, is oriented towards the Danube, but drained over the Wutach and the Alb into the Rhine. The southern crest of the Black Forest in the west is deeply incised by the Rhine into numerous ridges. Immediately right of the Wiese above Lörrach rises the relatively small Bunter Sandstone- Rotliegendes table of the Weintenau Uplands ( Weitenauer Bergland ) in the extreme southwest of
4320-400: The annual rainfall there is about 750 L/m . Swabia Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany . The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia , one of the German stem duchies , representing the historic settlement area of the Germanic tribe alliances named Alemanni and Suebi . This territory would include all of
4410-417: The area from being commercially exploited. The Southern Black Forest Nature Park ( Naturpark Südschwarzwald ) was founded in 1999. It comprises 394,000 ha and is therefore Germany's largest nature park (as of 2020). It encloses the southern part of the Central Black Forest, the Southern Black Forest and adjacent areas. The Central/North Black Forest Nature Park ( Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord )
4500-460: The best-known Black Forest costumes is that of the villages of Kirnbach , Reichenbach and Gutach im Kinzigtal with the characteristic Bollenhut headdress. Unmarried women wear the hats with red bobbles or Bollen ; married women wear black. Engaged women sometimes wear a bridal crown ( Schäppel ) before and on the day of their wedding, whose largest examples from the town of St. Georgen weigh up to 5 kilograms. Its rural beauty as well as
4590-425: The catchment areas of the upper reaches of the Danube headstreams, the Brigach and Breg as well as the left side valleys of the Wutach north of Neustadt – and thus draining from the northeast of the Southern Black Forest. To the south and west it is adjoined by the High Black Forest ( Hochschwarzwald , 155) with the highest summits in the whole range around the Feldberg and the Belchen . Its eastern part,
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#17328522443464680-401: The cities formerly belonging to Hohenstaufen to be Free Imperial Cities , and the more powerful abbeys within the former duchy to be Imperial Abbeys. The rural regions were merged into the Imperial Shrievalty ( Reichslandvogtei ) of Swabia, which was given as Imperial Pawn to Duke Leopold III of Austria in 1379 and again to Sigismund, Archduke of Austria in 1473/1486. He took the title of
4770-441: The city league by Count Eberhard II of Württemberg in 1372 led to the formation of a new league of fourteen Swabian cities on 4 July 1376. The emperor refused to recognise the newly revitalised Swabian League, seeing it as a rebellion, and this led to an " imperial war " against the league. The renewed league defeated an imperial army at the Battle of Reutlingen on 14 May 1377. Burgrave Frederick V of Hohenzollern finally defeated
4860-513: The clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The exposed basement in the west, predominantly made up of metamorphic rocks and granites , was, despite its rugged topography, easier to settle and appears much more open and inviting today with its varied meadow valleys. The most common way of dividing
4950-422: The crystalline basement of the Northern Black Forest and the adjacent parts of the Central Black Forest, the bunter sandstone platforms rise in prominent steps. The most resistant surface strata on the stepped terrain of the grinden uplands and the heights around the upper reaches of the Enz , which have been heavily eroded by the tributaries of the Murg, is the silicified main conglomerate (Middle Bunter). To
5040-419: The east and north are the nappes of the Upper Bunter (platten sandstones and red clays). South of the Kinzig the Bunter Sandstone zone narrows to a fringe in the east of the mountain range. It is considered proven that the Black Forest was heavily glaciated during the peak periods of at least the Riss and Würm glaciations (up to about 10,000 years ago). This glacial geomorphology characterizes almost all of
5130-412: The former state of Württemberg (with the Prussian Hohenzollern Province ), or the modern districts of Tübingen (excluding the former Baden regions of the Bodenseekreis district), Stuttgart , and the administrative region of Bavarian Swabia . In the Middle Ages , the term Swabia indicated a larger area, covering all the lands associated with the Frankish stem duchy of Alamannia stretching from
5220-434: The late 5th century, the area settled by the Alemanni extended to Alsace and the Swiss Plateau , bordering on the Bavarii to the east, the Franks to the north, the remnants of Roman Gaul to the west, and the Lombards and Goths , united in the Kingdom of Odoacer , to the south. The name Alamannia was used by the 8th century, and from the 9th century, Suebia was occasionally used for Alamannia , while Alamannia
5310-426: The later Carolingian period , Swabia became once again de facto independent, by the early 10th century mostly ruled by two dynasties, the Hunfriding counts in Raetia Curiensis and the Ahalolfings ruling the Baar estates around the upper Neckar and Danube rivers. The conflict between the two dynasties was decided in favour of Hunfriding Burchard II at the Battle of Winterthur (919). Burchard's rule as duke
5400-474: The league in 1388 at Döffingen . The next year the city league disbanded according to the resolutions of the Reichstag at Eger . The major dynasties that arose out of medieval Swabia were the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns , who rose to prominence in Northern Germany. Also stemming from Swabia are the local dynasties of the dukes of Württemberg and the margraves of Baden . The Welf family went on to rule in Bavaria and Hanover , and are ancestral to
5490-426: The middle: Freudenstadt , Ortenaukreis and Rottweil ; in the south: Emmendingen , Schwarzwald-Baar , Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald , Lörrach and Waldshut . The natural regions of the Black Forest are separated by various features. Geomorphologically , the main division is between the gentle eastern slopes with their mostly rounded hills and broad plateaux (so-called Danubian relief , especially prominent in
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#17328522443465580-430: The much higher Southern Black Forest with its distinctive highland economy and ice age glacial relief. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South and southern Central Black Forest. The boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Central Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz and Kinzig tributary of
5670-412: The multiple baroque fieldworks of Margrave Louis William of Baden-Baden or individual defensive positions such as the Alexanderschanze (Alexander's Redoubt), the Röschenschanze and the Schwedenschanze ( Swedish Redoubt ). Originally, the Black Forest was a mixed forest of deciduous trees and firs. At the higher elevations spruce also grew. In the middle of the 19th century, the Black Forest
5760-408: The national game of Baden and Hohenzollern , and these are the only regions of Germany where tarot cards are still used for playing games. The game has grown organically, and there are many regional variations, but in recent years the establishment of a Cego Black Forest Championship has led to official tournament rules being defined. In addition, regular courses and local tournaments are held and it
5850-431: The natives of Swabia and speakers of Swabian German . Their number was estimated at close to 0.8 million by SIL Ethnologue as of 2006, compared to a total population of 7.5 million in the regions of Tübingen , Stuttgart and Bavarian Swabia . Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined. However, today it is normally thought of as comprising the former Swabian Circle , or equivalently
5940-523: The north and east on the Bunter Sandstone) and the deeply incised, steeply falling terrain in the west that drops into the Upper Rhine Graben ; the so-called Valley Black Forest ( Talschwarzwald ) with its Rhenanian relief. It is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height (of up to 1000 metres) are found. The valleys are often narrow and ravine-like. The summits are rounded, and there are remnants of plateaux and arête -like landforms. Geologically
6030-438: The north and northeast periphery of the mountain range that descend to the Kraichgau in the north and the Heckengäu landscapes in the east. They are incised by valleys, especially those of the Nagold river system, into individual interfluves ; a narrow northwestern finger extends to beyond the Enz near Neuenbürg and also borders the middle reaches of the Alb to the west as far as a point immediately above Ettlingen . To
6120-422: The north. The Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands , and much of it is densely wooded, a fragment of the Hercynian Forest of antiquity. Administratively, the Black Forest belongs completely to the state of Baden-Württemberg and comprises the cities of Freiburg , Pforzheim and Baden-Baden as well as the following districts ( Kreise ). In the north: Enz , Rastatt and Calw ; in
6210-400: The other lakes of the Schluchseewerk , the Schwarzenbach Reservoir , the Kleine Kinzig Reservoir or the Nagold Reservoir are used for electricity generation , flood protection or drinking water supply. The Black Forest consists of a cover of sandstone on top of a core of gneiss and granite . Formerly it shared tectonic evolution with the nearby Vosges Mountains . Later during
6300-451: The permission of the manor, glassblowers operated simple glass production facilities as "wandering huts" ( Wanderhütten ), the locations of which were relocated when the local resources were available. They needed huge amounts of firewood and wood for potash . In the second half of the 18th century, the huts had to close due to a shortage of wood and sales difficulties. Only after 1800, when the demand for luxury glass increased enormously, when
6390-466: The region's cultural heritage. After the defeat of Further Austria in 1805, much of its territory was allocated to the Grand Duchy of Baden . During the ensuing Napoleonic Wars , soldiers from Baden deployed with Napoleon's troops to Spain where, among other things, they learned a new card game, Ombre . They took this back to Baden and adapted it to be played with Tarot cards which were then in common use in southern Germany. Cego soon developed into
6480-687: The region, among them two restaurants with three stars (Restaurants Bareiss and Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn ) as well as the only restaurant in Germany that has been awarded a Michelin star every year since 1966. At Schwarzwald Hotel Adler in Häusern , three generations of chefs from the same family have defended the award from the first year the Michelin Guide selected restaurants in Germany until today. The German holiday of Fastnacht , or Fasnet , as it
6570-521: The regions of the Black Forest is, however, from north to south. Until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley . Later the Black Forest was divided into the heavily forested Northern Black Forest , the lower, central section, predominantly used for agriculture in the valleys, was the Central Black Forest and
6660-775: The rock massif of Battert near Baden-Baden). Thick rotliegendes rock, covered by bunter, also occurs in the north of the Dinkelberg block (several hundred metres thick in the Basel geothermal borehole). Even further to the southeast, under the Jura, lies the North Swiss Permocarboniferous Basin. Since the downfaulting of the Upper Rhine Graben during the Eocene epoch, the two shoulders on either side have been uplifted:
6750-479: The sense of tradition of its inhabitants attracted many artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works made the Black Forest famous the world over. Notable were Hans Thoma from Bernau and his fellow student, Rudolf Epp, who was sponsored by the Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick I . Both artists painted motifs from the Black Forest throughout their lives. Artist J. Metzler from Düsseldorf travelled through
6840-594: The southeast (around Todtmoos) is a range of exotic inclusions: gabbro from Ehrsberg , serpentinites and pyroxenites near Todtmoos, norite near Horbach ), which are possibly the remnants of an accretionary wedge from a continental collision. Also noteworthy are the basins in the Rotliegend , for example the Schramberg or the Baden-Baden Basin with thick quartz-porphyry and tuff plates (exposed, for example, on
6930-546: The southern Black Forest, including the Feldberg. As a result, the upper surface of the basement in the northern part of the forest around the Hornisgrinde is considerably lower. In the central Black Forest, the tectonic syncline of the Kinzig and Murg emerged. Geomorphologist Walther Penck regarded the Black Forest as an uplifted geologic dome and modeled his theory of piedmonttreppen (piedmont benchlands) on it. Above
7020-637: The southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills ( Grindenschwarzwald und Enzhöhen , 151), along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. The west of the Northern Black Forest is formed by the Northern Black Forest Valleys ( Nördliche Talschwarzwald , 152) with the middle reaches of the Murg around Gernsbach , the middle course of
7110-565: The storm are demonstrated by the Lothar Path , a forest educational and adventure trail at the nature centre in Ruhestein on a highland timber forest of about 10 hectares that was destroyed by a hurricane. Several areas of storm damage, both large and small, were left to nature and have developed today into a natural mixed forest again. The Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to
7200-529: The term. Baden's residents mostly refer to themselves as Alemanni (versus the Swabians ). SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. This corresponds to roughly 10% of the total population of the Swabian region, or roughly 1% of the total population of Germany. As an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are closely related to other speakers of Alemannic German , i.e. Badeners , Alsatians , and German-speaking Swiss . Swabian German
7290-564: The twelfth century. Fearing the power of the greater princes, the cities and smaller secular rulers of Swabia joined to form the Swabian League in the fifteenth century. The League was quite successful, notably expelling the Duke of Württemberg in 1519 and putting in his place a Habsburg governor, but the league broke up a few years later over religious differences inspired by the Reformation , and
7380-529: The uprisings (including the Bundschuh movement ) that preceded the 16th century German Peasants' War , originated in the Black Forest. Further peasant unrest, in the shape of the saltpetre uprisings, took place over the next two centuries in Hotzenwald . Remnants of military fortifications dating from the 17th and 18th centuries can be found in the Black Forest, especially on the mountain passes. Examples include
7470-408: The valleys, crossing the old settlement boundary, the so-called "red sandstone border", for example, from the region of Baar . Soon afterwards, increasingly higher areas and adjacent forests were colonized, so that by the end of the 10th century, the first settlements could be found in the red (bunter) sandstone region. These include, for example, Rötenbach , which was first mentioned in 819. Some of
7560-789: The western rim of the range. Rivers in the Black Forest include the Danube (which originates in the Black Forest as the confluence of the Brigach and Breg rivers), the Enz , the Kinzig , the Murg , the Nagold , the Neckar , the Rench , and the Wiese . The Black Forest occupies part of the continental divide between the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin (drained by the Rhine ) and
7650-465: The whole of Franconia had become part of their kingdom. In contemporary usage, Schwaben is sometimes taken to refer to Bavarian Swabia exclusively, correctly however it includes the larger Württemberg part of Swabia. Its inhabitants attach great importance to calling themselves Swabians. Baden, historically part of the duchy of Swabia and also of the Swabian Circle, is no longer commonly included in
7740-468: Was acknowledged as such by the newly elected king Henry the Fowler , and in the 960s the duchy under Burchard III was incorporated in the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I . The Hohenstaufen dynasty, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th and 13th centuries, arose out of Swabia, but following the execution of Conradin , the last Hohenstaufen, on 29 October 1268, the duchy was not reappointed during
7830-487: Was almost completely deforested by intensive forestry and was subsequently replanted, mostly with spruce monocultures . In 1990, extensive damage to the forest was caused by a series of windstorms . On 26 December 1999, Cyclone Lothar raged across the Black Forest and caused even greater damage, especially to the spruce monocultures. As had happened following the 1990 storms, large quantities of fallen logs were kept in provisional wet-storage areas for years. The effects of
7920-723: Was formed in 1488, opposing the expansionist Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the Swiss . In 1519, the League conquered Württemberg and sold it to Charles V after its duke Ulrich seized the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. It helped to suppress the Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26 and defeat an alliance of robber barons in
8010-541: Was founded in 2000. It covers 375,000 ha and is thus the second-largest in Germany (as of 2020). It begins in the southern part of the Central Black Forest, bordering on the Southern Black Forest Nature Park and covers the rest of the Black Forest to the north. The Black Forest National Park , established in 2014, is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg. It lies completely within
8100-545: Was increasingly used to refer to Alsace specifically. By the 12th century, Suebia rather than Alamannia was used consistently for the territory of the Duchy of Swabia . Swabia was one of the original stem duchies of East Francia , the later Holy Roman Empire , as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Due to the foundation of the important abbeys of St. Gallen and Reichenau , Swabia became an important center of Old High German literary culture during this period. In
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