Saxon Highlands and Uplands


The Saxon Highlands and Uplands refer to a natural region mainly in the south of Saxony with small elements also in southeast Thuringia and northeast Bavaria. It comprises, from west to east, of the Vogtland, the Ore Mountains, Saxon Switzerland, the Upper Lusatian Plateau and the Zittau Hills.
The amalgamation of several major geographical units by the working group for Ecological balance and Regional Character at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, that includes a break-up of the old natural region of Oberlausitz, has not been fully recognised officially, because this division has not yet been accepted by federal authorities like the Bundesamt für Naturschutz, but does broadly follow the logic of other groupings such as that of the Thuringian-Franconian Upland which border it to the west and includes the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland, Franconian Forest and Fichtelgebirge.
Whilst the Thuringian-Franconian Upland, like the adjacent Upper Palatine-Bavarian Forest run from northwest to southeast, these low Saxon mountains generally run from west-southwest to east-northeast. The Vogtland, whose German section lies mainly in the natural region in the Free State of Saxony that gives it its name, forms the actual link to the Thuringian-Franconian Upland.
The new internal subdivisions of the Ore Mountains have since been adopted by the BfN.

Natural sub-divisions

The following list shows the current division of natural regions. Main geographical units according to Meynen and the BfN are shown with an asterisk.
The older division of the Ore Mountains into major units by Meynen is as follows :