Bergisches Land

The Bergisches Land (German: [ˈbɛʁɡɪʃəs ˈlant], Berg Country) is a low mountain range in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of the Rhine and south of the Ruhr.

[2] Important places in the duchy were Gerresheim, Elberfeld, Solingen, Lennep, Radevormwald, Wipperfürth, Bensberg, Siegburg and Blankenberg [de; nl], most of which received city rights from the 13th century.

The seat of the counts and dukes was initially Berge Castle [de] in Altenberg near Odenthal, after the construction of Burg Castle the town of Burg an der Wupper [de] (today a district of Solingen) and then from 1386 to 1822 Düsseldorf, which the dukes became a representative residence - and expanded the capital of the Duchy.

The northern parts of the Bergisches Land included the cities of Mülheim an der Ruhr, parts of Duisburg, Essen and Oberhausen (Alstaden [de; nl] and Dümpten [de; pl]), and the areas on the western border also included the area on the right bank of the Rhine, Cologne near Mülheim.

Political and cultural differences alone determine the course of the border between the two historical landscapes, which, however, roughly corresponds to the eastern watersheds of Wupper and Agger, while the (western) Sauerland is mainly drained by the Ruhr and its tributaries.

The largest part of the Bergisches Land is characterized by a varied low mountain range landscape with forests, meadows and hills as well as narrow notch valley [de; fr; ja; nl; pt]s also called Siepen with small streams.

Except for the areas that transition into the Sauerland, the Bergisches Land is referred to as peneplain due to the advanced erosion of the mountains.

The Nutscheid [arz; de] on the southern edge of the Bergisches Land is one of the largest forest areas and largely uninhabited.

In the news of WDR, only the eastern areas are referred to as "Bergisches Land", whereas the western ones are counted as part of the unclearly circumscribed "Rhineland".

The Bergisches Land cultural region includes the cities of Wuppertal, Remscheid, Solingen and the districts of Mettmann, Oberberg and Rhein-Berg.