Minden


Minden is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the largest town in population between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district of Minden-Lübbecke, situated in the cultural region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe and the administrative region of Detmold. The town extends along both sides of the River Weser, and is crossed by the Mittelland Canal, which is led over the river on the Minden Aqueduct.
In its 1,200-year written history, Minden had functions as diocesan town from to the Peace of Westphalia in, as capital of the Prince-Bishopric of Minden as imperial territory since the 12th century, afterwards as capital of Prussia's Minden-Ravensberg until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, and as capital of the East-Westphalian region from the Congress of Vienna until 1947. Furthermore, Minden has been of great military importance with fortifications from the 15th to the late 19th century, and is still a garrison town.
Minden hosts diverse industries, none predominant. The town has been terminus of one of the oldest German railway trunks since 1847, adding to the multimodal transport hub between its harbour, federal roads, and a nearby highway junction.

Geography

Location

Minden is a town in the northeastern part of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The town is crossed by the Weser flowing north. The town centre lies on a plateau on the western side of the river north of the Porta Westfalica gap between the ridges of the Weser Hills and Wiehen Hills, where the Weser leaves the Weser Uplands and flows into the North German Plain. The small Bastau stream flows into the Weser from the west near the town centre. The edge of the plateau marks the transition from the Middle Weser Valley to the Lübbecke Loessland, divides the upper town from the lower town, and marks the boundary between two ecological zones.
In the frame of Natural regions of Germany, the western part of Minden belongs to a sequence of geomorphological units : the Wiehen Hills, the Lübbecke Loessland, therein the Bastau depression, and the Dümmer Geest Lowland. The eastern part lies in the Middle Weser Valley depression.
Crossing the Weser valley was once favoured by a ford with a break in the middle; there its meander touches the western edge of the valley, the eastern floodplain is usually flood-meadow, so that the central bridgehead becomes a river island. Today a system of two bridges crosses the valley.
The Mittelland Canal connecting the river systems of Ems, Weser and Elbe traverses the town from west to east. These waterways cross in the northern area of the town at the Minden Aqueduct.
The Weser leaves the Minden area at its lowest part in the quarter of Leteln, at, while the highest part is the top of Häverstädter Berg with, at the edge of the Wiehen Hills in the quarter of Haddenhausen. The altitude of the town is given officially as, based on the elevation of the town hall.
The town covers an area of. It extends from north to south and from east to west.
Minden is northeast of Bielefeld, west of Hanover, south of Bremen and east of Osnabrück.

Neighbouring settlements

The neighbouring towns and communities of Minden are : Petershagen, Bückeburg, Porta Westfalica, Bad Oeynhausen, and Hille.

Town subdivision

Minden is administratively divided into 19 quarters:
  • Bärenkämpen
  • Bölhorst
  • Dankersen
  • Dützen
  • Haddenhausen
  • Häverstädt
  • Hahlen
  • Innenstadt
  • Königstor
  • Kutenhausen
  • Leteln-Aminghausen
  • Meißen
  • Minderheide
  • Nordstadt
  • Päpinghausen
  • Rechtes Weserufer
  • Rodenbeck
  • Stemmer
  • Todtenhausen
The area of the historical town until the 19th century is today part of the quarter Innenstadt.

Climate

Minden has no meteorological station, therefore the data of the next station Bückeburg in distance of are given.
The meteorological data of the whole East-Westphalian region comply with zone Cfb of the Köppen climate classification, named as Temperate Oceanic climate. This rough classification gives no suitable and detailed description of the regional situation. The furthest north-eastern part of East-Westphalia is the driest of the state, though located in a small distance to the sea, caused by the main direction of the cyclones from roughly west to east with its prevailing south-westerly rain-bringing weather fronts. So the Minden region lies in the leeward rain shadow of the Teutoburg Forest and the Wiehen Hills. A cloudy weather south of the Wiehen Hills is often connected with clear sky in the north of the hills.

Geology, mineral deposits and their use

The Wiehen Hills escarpment extends more than from west of Osnabrück to the Porta Westfalica gap and is continued in the Weser Hills range. The escarpment forming horizons incline gently flattening to the north; they are of jurassic age, overlaid by cretaceous sediments that form the hill of Bölhorst, and tertiary layers further to the north. The underground basis is of palaeozoic material from Devonian to Permian. A new described genus of dinosaur, the Wiehenvenator, was found in the Wiehen Hills near Haddenhausen, popularly referred to as the "Monster of Minden".
The Porta sandstone of the Wiehen Hills has been used as building material for centuries and is seen in many public and private buildings in Minden and the region. Another valuable material is iron ore, that was being mined until the first half of the 20th century. Mining relics remain: e.g. the Potts Park, an amusement park in Dützen, on a former ore mine.
The Bölhorst hill north of the Wiehen Hills is formed by horizons of Lower Cretaceous age and, in geological sense, is the western extension of the eastward Bückeberg in the Schaumburg district. In both elevations the hard coal containing Berriasian layers reach near to the surface. By reason of the correspondence of the Bückeberg Formation to the Wealden Group, the type of coal found here was named Wealdenkohle in German. Mining in the Minden Coalfield started in the 17th century during the Swedish occupation and ended in the late 19th century. Another coal mine in the eastern quarter of Meißen worked from 1878 to 1958.
A source of 10-percentage brine with its origin in the deep Zechstein series was pumped in the Bölhorst mine and once used for balneotherapy.
The last relief-forming age was the pleistocene. During the Saalian glaciation the whole region was ice-covered, now verified by glacial erratic rocks from Scandinavia placed for decoration in the town. The Bastau depression, a late-Saalian Weser bed, became a marshy peat-covered area; the peat is completely exhausted for its use in firing. In the time of Weichselian glaciation the glacier did not reach this region. In the periglacial climate of that time fine material was blown and accumulated north of the Wiehen Hills as well as north of the Bastau depression in either small west–east stripes of loess.
In the Weser depression, Weichselian gravel deposits are found and used in gravel pits.

Land use

The forestry use of the considerably inclined Wiehen Hills shows a striking contrast to the nearly woodless loess stripes of the northern foothills as well as north of the Bastau depression. The loess developed to most fertile soils and has been used as arable land since prehistoric times. Both of its stripes are key traffic veins, today the from Minden to Lübbecke and the regional road from Minden to Espelkamp. The villages, so connected, have developed into settlements of considerable size.
The Bastau depression is wood and housing estate-free, having agricultural use. Only one north-south road passes through it, southwest of the town. The gleysols of this area as well as in the Weser valley depression are in agricultural use after drainage.
Four nature conservation areas extend completely or partly over Minden territory. The most northern of them provides a biological site for education in ecology.
The percentage of woodland is smaller than in other towns of the same type.
Settlement and trafficAgricultureWoodlandOther areas
Minden40.7%49.0%6.1%4.1%
Towns of same type
in North Rhine-Westphalia		31.9%42.7%22.4%3.0%

History

Ancient history

The Minden area shows continuing settlement activity from the 1st to the 4th century, when it belonged to the Weser–Rhine Germanic development sphere. During the Roman campaigns in Germania, this part of Westphalia came into the focus of military activities. It remains a matter of discussion whether or not the Minden region was the location of the military camp from where commander Publius Quinctilius Varus began marching to the, for Rome disastrous, Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in. Likewise, the localization of the Battle of Idistaviso and the Battle of the Angrivarian Wall, both taking place in, to the eastern part of Minden or its neighbour town of Porta Westfalica is uncertain. Definite archaeological proofs for these locations have not been found. However, relicts of a temporary Roman military camp were found in Barkhausen in 2008, about south of the centre of Minden.

Middle Ages

The name Minda was firstly mentioned in a Royal Frankish Annals record referring to an army assembly held by Charlemagne in. The location of the so-named settlement is supposed at the left river side, where today's Fischerstadt exists. Directly neighbouring was the suspected site of a permanent frankish army camp and a royal estate, located favourably at the place where ways from the south were bundled by the Porta Westfalica gap, connected with a west–east way parallel to the Wiehen and Weser hills, and at a ford through the Weser. The region had already been converted to Christianity, when around a bishopric was founded in Minden, one of the seven diocese foundations established under the rule of Charlemagne. The first cathedral was built nearby to the older village. After the dissolution of the Duchy of Saxony in 1180 the bishop became sovereign of the Prince-Bishopric of Minden as a constitutional territory of the Holy Roman Empire, and remained in this status until 1648. During the Investiture controversy two bishops were nominated at the same time in 1080 both by the papal supporters and those of King Henry IV.
The Cathedral close on the lower Weser terrace was soon surrounded to the north and west by a settlement of artisans and merchants, who lived in a parish of their own. The development of the upper town began with the activities of ecclesiastical convents. A convent of Benedictine nuns removed from the Wiehen Hills to the northwestern edge of the town around St Mary approximately. In 1029, the Canonical Convent of St Martin appears, and a 1042-founded Benedictine monastery removed in 1434 from the Weser shore to a new upper site, where the monastery of St Mauritius was founded. The Dominicane convent St Paul was established in 1236.
German medieval sovereigns governed their realms with an itinerant court, travelling from town to town. Louis the German hold an imperial assembly in Minden in 852. The Emperors of the Ottonian and Salian dynasty visited Minden several times. When Henry IV came to visit in 1062, a dispute between members of his entourage and citizens caused a fire that destroyed the cathedral and parts of the town. The imperial visit of Charles IV in October 1377 was the last one until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
In 1168, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, married his second wife Matilda, daughter of Henry II of England, in Minden Cathedral; with this marriage Henry maintained the continuance of the House of Welf.
The rights to hold a market, to mint coins, and to collect customs duties were granted in 977 by Emperor Otto II. Until the beginning of the 13th century, the bishop appointed the Wichgraf as secular administrator of the town. The citizens of Minden and their council obtained independence from the bishop's rule around 1230 and received a town charter in 1301. The increased self-confidence of the citizens was demonstrated by the construction of the town hall, probably adjoining the separately governed cathedral precinct. As a result, the Bishop moved his official residence from Minden to Petershagen in 1307.
The economic development of Minden was influenced by its location on a navigable river and by its success in grain trading since the Middle Ages. Minden got the right to store goods and could force passing ships to unload their cargo; furthermore the town became a flourishing member of the Hanseatic League. The precise year of the first Weser bridge construction is not known. A previous wooden pedestrian bridge was replaced in the late 13th century by another one fit for wagon transport. In the early 16th century Minden got a stone arch bridge.