Odenwald

Odenwald
Overview of the Odenwald
Highest point
Peak	Katzenbuckel
Elevation	626 m (2,054 ft) NHN
Coordinates	49°28′15″N 9°2′28″E / 49.47083°N 9.04111°E / 49.47083; 9.04111
Dimensions
Area	2,500 km2 (970 sq mi)
Geography
Country	Germany
State/Province	Hesse, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg
Range coordinates	49°35′N 9°01′E / 49.58°N 9.02°E / 49.58; 9.02Coordinates: 49°35′N 9°01′E / 49.58°N 9.02°E / 49.58; 9.02

The  Odenwald  (German pronunciation: [ˈoːdənvalt]) is a low mountain range in the German states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

The Odenwald is located between the Upper Rhine Plain with the Bergstraße and the Hessisches Ried (the northeastern section of the Rhine rift) in the west, the Main and the Bauland (a mostly unwooded area with good soils) in the east, the Hanau-Seligenstadt Basin – a subbasin of the Upper Rhine Rift Valley in the Rhine-Main Lowlands – in the north and the Kraichgau in the south. The part south of the Neckar valley is sometimes called the Kleiner Odenwald ("Little Odenwald").

The northern and western Odenwald belong to southern Hesse, with the south stretching into Baden. In the northeast, a small part lies in Lower Franconia in Bavaria.

The Odenwald, along with other parts of the Central German Uplands, belongs to the Variscan, which more than 300,000,000 years ago in the Devonian ran through great parts of Europe. The cause of this orogeny was the collision of Africa’s and Europe’s forerunner continents.