Central Germany (geography)

Central Germany or Middle Germany, in geography, describes the areas surrounding the geographical centre of Germany.
Hesse, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia are the only landlocked German states without an international border except for the city-states of Berlin and Hamburg.

Geographical centre

The central point shifted several times during the country's eventful history. Today, Niederdorla, in the state of Thuringia, claims to be the most central municipality in Germany. A plaque was erected and a lime tree planted at after the 1990 German reunification. The point was confirmed as the centroid of the extreme coordinates by the Dresden University of Technology. Niederdorla is also the centre of gravity, about to the southwest. Other municipalities claiming the title are Krebeck, in Lower Saxony, and Edermünde, in Hesse; the village of Landstreit, near Eisenach claims ot as well.
The geographical centre of the German Empire from 1871 to 1919 was located at Spremberg, in the Province of Brandenburg, Prussia. The centroid of East Germany until 1990 was located between the villages of Verlorenwasser and Weitzgrund, near Bad Belzig.

Topography

The German Central Uplands is the Mittelgebirge area of low mountains and hills, comprising numerous individual ranges like the Rhenish Massif, the Lower Saxon Hills, the West and East Hesse Highlands, the Harz and the Thuringian-Franconian Highlands as well as the Bohemian Massif - in between the North German Plain and the Main river separating it from the South German Scarplands. The Thuringian Basin forms one of the core regions.