Altmark

The Altmark (English: Old March) is a historic region in Germany, comprising the northern third of Saxony-Anhalt. As the initial territory of the March of Brandenburg, it is sometimes referred to as the "Cradle of Prussia", as by Otto von Bismarck, a native from Schönhausen near Stendal.

The Altmark is located west of the Elbe river between the cities of Hamburg and Magdeburg, mostly included in the present-day^[update] districts of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel and Stendal. In the west, the Drawehn hill range and the Drömling depression separate it from the Lüneburg Heath in Lower Saxony; the Altmark also borders the Wendland region in the north and the Magdeburg Börde in the south. Adjacent east of the Elbe is the historical Prignitz region.

The population is small. The cultural landscape within the North European Plain is rural and widely covered with forests and heathlands. The largest towns are Stendal, with a population of 39,000, and Salzwedel (21,500).

Before the Migration Period of 300 to 700 AD, the Lombards had settled the future Altmark. Subsequently, Old Germanic Saxon tribes lived in the northwest and Polabian Slavs in the eastern territories along the Elbe. After the Saxon Wars, waged by Charlemagne from 772 to 804, the lands became part of the Carolingian Empire. They formed part of the Eastphalian territory of the Duchy of Saxony, which, from 843 onwards, constituted the eastern borderlands of East Francia under Louis the German. The bishops of Verden and of Halberstadt promoted the Christianisation of the Saxon population.