Lower Lusatia
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Please expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German Wikipedia. (March 2009) After translating, {{Translated|de|Niederlausitz}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance.Translation instructions · Translate via Google · Involve your language class |
Most of the area belonging to the German state of Brandenburg today is called Lower Lusatia (Niederlausitz or Dolna Łužyca) and is characterised by forests and meadows. In the course of much of the 19th and the entire 20th century, it was shaped by the lignite industry and extensive open-pit mining. Important towns include Cottbus, Lübben, Lübbenau, Spremberg, Finsterwalde, and Senftenberg - Zły Komorow.
Between Upper and Lower Lusatia is a region called Grenzwall, meaning 'border-wall'. In the Middle Ages this area had dense forests, so it represented a major obstacle to civilian and military traffic. Some of the region's villages were damaged or destroyed by the open-pit lignite mining industry managed by Communist East Germany. Some, now exhausted, former open-pit mines are now being converted into artificial lakes, with much hope to attract vacationers, and the area is now being referred to as Lausitzer Seenland ('Lusatian Lakeland').
