Eastphalia

Eastphalia (German: Ostfalen [ɔstˈfaːlən]; Eastphalian: Oostfalen) is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern Gaue (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe and Saale in the east.

[1] The North German Plain of Eastphalia and Westphalia, divided by the Weser river, stands in contrast to the hilly region to the south, the Central Uplands of Franconia and Thuringia.

The Eastphalian territory at the Harz mountain range was the hereditary lands of Henry the Fowler, the first Saxon duke to become King of the Romans in 919, and his descendants of the Ottonian dynasty.

They left several Romanesque abbeys and castles, a cultural landscape that today encompasses three World Heritage Sites with the medieval town of Goslar and Quedlinburg, as well as St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church at Hildesheim.

After the Welf duke Henry the Lion was placed under Imperial ban in 1180, Eastphalia was increasingly subdivided into smaller states,[1] foremost the Welf Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and the counties of Anhalt, Wernigerode and Blankenburg as well as the Imperial city of Goslar, but also the ecclesiastical territories of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, the prince-bishoprics of Hildesheim and Halberstadt and Quedlinburg Abbey.