All the former Saxe-Lauenburgian areas beyond the Elbe belong today to the Lower Saxon districts of Cuxhaven (Land of Hadeln), Harburg and Lüneburg.

The last document, mentioning the brothers and their uncle Albert II as Saxon fellow dukes dates back to 1295.

While the territory of Saxe-Wittenberg changed drastically over the centuries, the Duchy of Lauenburg remained almost unchanged, until it lost its independence in 1689, when it was inherited by the Principality of Lüneburg.

On 13 November 1945 the British general Colin Muir Barber and the Soviet general major Nikolay Grigoryevich Lyashchenko (Russian: Николай Григорьевич Лященко) signed the Barber-Lyashchenko Agreement [de] (or the Gadebusch Agreement) in Gadebusch, redeploying some municipalities of the Duchy of Lauenburg District and neighbouring Mecklenburg, then part of the Soviet Zone of Occupation.

[citation needed] The coat of arms displays a white horse, the ancient symbol of the duchy of Saxony.

The coat of arms was granted on 12 November 1866, after the Hohenzollern dynasty started to rule Saxe-Lauenburg in personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia.

[citation needed] From 1873–82 the Hereditary Land Marshal (Erblandmarschall) was responsible for administration of the district and the appointment of offices.

Contrary to others in Schleswig-Holstein, this district is characterised by numerous relatively small municipalities, which practise direct democracy and citizens' participation.

To that extent, the scope of the planned Schleswig-Holstein Administrative Structure Law will be quite significant: according to the draft of the Ministry of the Interior, a minimum size of 8000 inhabitants was to be implemented for Ämter and independent municipalities as a regional reorganisation due 1 April 2007.

The economical emphasis of the district lies on the Hamburg bacon-belt, while the eastern parts in the Lauenburg Lakes Nature Park with their abundance of water cater more to tourism and are largely focused on agriculture.