The Thuringian Highland, Thuringian Highlands or Thuringian-Vogtlandian Slate Mountains ( or Thüringisches Schiefergebirge, literally "Thuringian Slate Hills") is a low range of mountains in the German state of Thuringia.

Geography

The Thuringian Highland borders on the Thuringian Forest to the southwest. It is a plateau about 20 km wide that slopes southeast towards the Saale valley in the area of the Saale Dam and includes parts of the Thuringian Forest and Thuringian Highland and Upper Saale Nature Park. The largest towns in the Thuringian Highland are Saalfeld and Bad Blankenburg which lie on its northern perimeter, Neuhaus am Rennweg in the highest region and Bad Lobenstein on the eastern edge (where it transitions into Franconian Forest). The area includes a total of 4 smaller regions: The slate mountains of the Vogtland and Thuringian Highland stretch from the Thuringian Forest to the Ore Mountains. They are between about 300 m to high, and comprise gently rolling hills which are part of the backbone of the Central Uplands. They extend for about 75 km from east to west and 50 km from north to south. Typical features of the landscape are the dolerite peaks or Kuppen (like the Pöhlde or the Hübel) with their wooded crests. These are made from a volcanic rock, dolerite, which is harder than the surrounding rocks and so weathers more slowly, giving rise to the characteristic Kuppen.

Geology

As its German name suggests, the Thuringian Highland is mainly made of slate rock. Although this region was formed in a similar way to the Harz, it lacks the sharp divisions caused by fault lines. Almost all the way round the region transitions gradually into the surrounding land. The rocks found here are from the Palaeozoic era, i.e. the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Lower Carboniferous periods. The most important ones are: Karst-forming, and hence cave-forming, limestone only occurs in a few, small, isolated areas. As a result the number of caves is very low.

Rivers and hydro-electric power

In the Saale Valley there are two of the largest dams in Germany, which form the Hohenwarte and Bleiloch Reservoirs. In the Schwarza Valley there is the Goldisthal Pumped Storage Station, opened in 2003, which is one of the largest pumped-storage hydro-electric power stations in Europe.

Mountains and hills

Around the steep-sided valleys of the Schwarza and Saale the height difference between hilltops and valley bottoms is often as much as 300 m or more, which is large for hills of this size.

Literature