Elbufer-Drawehn Nature Park
Coordinates: 53°13′20.93″N 10°59′10.78″E / 53.2224806°N 10.9863278°E
The Elbhöhen-Wendland Nature Park (German: Naturpark Elbhöhen-Wendland), formerly known as the Elbufer-Drawehn Nature Park (Naturpark Elbufer-Drawehn) is a German nature park east of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony.
The nature park lies mainly in Lüchow-Dannenberg and, after being extended in 2006, covers the majority of this rural district. It has an area of about 1,160 square kilometres (450 sq mi) and belongs to some of the most sparsely populated areas in Germany. The park originally included two very different geographical regions from which it derived its name:
Both landscapes were formed by the ice age. The Drawehn is an end moraine from the penultimate glaciation - a heap of rock debris pushed by the ice sheet and left behind at the end of the glacier. The Elbe valley by contrast was a meltwater channel from the last ice age.
The park was founded in 1968. It is part of the Elbe River Landscape (Flusslandschaft Elbe), which was designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1997 and overlaps with the Lower Saxon Elbe Water Meadows Biosphere Reserve (Niedersächsische Elbtalaue Biosphärenreservat). On 1 June 2006 the protected area of the nature park was increased to 115.994 hectares (286.63 acres), almost double its previous size. In Germany the mere designation of an area as a nature park does not make it a strict nature conservation area, but is first and foremost to promote tourism.
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