Börde

A börde (plural: börden) is a region of highly fertile lowland in North Germany, a "fertile plain". These landscapes often cover great areas and are particularly important for arable farming on account of their rich soils.

These regions coincide closely with areas of flat, fertile loess soil and few trees. Börden are found in Germany, especially in the North German Old Drift region on the northern edges of Central Uplands. The resulting black earth soils are some of the best soils in Germany.

These landscapes are restricted to, or concentrated on, those regions where the Eastphalian and Westphalian dialects are spoken. There are two opposing explanations for the name. According to one, the term is connected with the Old High German word giburida ("judicial district") or the plattdeutsch word bören ("to bear"). The börde in this context is seen as a district in which the inhabitants had to "bear" public charges, i.e. it was effectively a taxation district. This may thus be a dialect variation of ("burden", "heavy load").

Because of the fertility of the börden another connexion has been made to the word bören, whose primary meaning was "yield" or "output", thus a börde would be a "land that produced a rich yield". Semasiological comparisons are made in this regard to the word tragen ("to carry", "to bear"): the related words Ertrag ("yield") and Getreide ("grain") stem from the Middle High German getregede ("that which is borne"). In the heraldic motto of the House of Alsleben is the term Vorborde, which is translated today as "for the ancestral land".

See also: Beauce and the terms Gau and Gäu as part of the name of various landscapes or administrative districts.

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