Emsland

District

Coat of arms

Country

Germany

State

Lower Saxony

Capital

Meppen

Area

• Total

2,881 km² (1,112 sq mi)

Population (31 December 2015)

• Total

319,488

• Density

110/km² (290/sq mi)

Time zone

CET (UTC+1)

• Summer (DST)

CEST (UTC+2)

Vehicle registration

Website

http://www.emsland.de

Landkreis Emsland is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany named after the river Ems. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Leer, Cloppenburg and Osnabrück, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (district of Steinfurt), the district of Bentheim and the Netherlands (provinces of Drenthe and Groningen).

For a long time the region of the Emsland was extremely sparsely populated, due to the fens on both sides of the river. Small villages were established in medieval times along the river and on the Hümmling. In the 13th century the bishops of Münster gained control over the region; the Emsland remained property of the bishop until 1803, when the clerical states were dissolved. It came under rule of Prussia and Arenberg, but after the Napoleonic Wars the Congress of Vienna decided to hand the territory over to the Kingdom of Hanover. The Duchy of Arenberg continued to exist as a fief of the Hanoverian kings. When Hanover was annexed by Prussia (1866), the dukes were deposed soon after (1875).

The now Prussian Province of Hanover was subdivided into districts in 1885; four districts were established on the territory of what is now the Landkreis Emsland. The districts were merged in 1977 to form the present district.

During the Nazi period, labour camps known as the Emslandlager ("Emsland camps") held thousands of political opponents of the Third Reich, located outside of Börgermoor, now part of the commune Surwold, not far from Papenburg. A memorial of these camps, the Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum (DIZ) Emslandlager, is located at Papenburg. The well known resistance song "Peat Bog Soldiers" was composed by political prisoners at one of these camps.

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Wikipedia