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Soltau-Fallingbostel (district)

Heidekreis
District
Coat of arms of Heidekreis
Coat of arms
Lower Saxony HK.svg
Country  Germany
State Lower Saxony
Capital Bad Fallingbostel
Government
 • District admin. Manfred Ostermann
Area
 • Total 1,873.5 km2 (723.4 sq mi)
Population (31 December 2015)
 • Total 140,264
 • Density 75/km2 (190/sq mi)
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
Vehicle registration HK (until 31.7.2011: SFA)
Website soltau-fallingbostel.de

Heidekreis ("Heath district") is a district (Landkreis) in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Harburg, Lüneburg, Uelzen, Celle, Hanover, Nienburg, Verden and Rotenburg.

Historically the region belonged to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg and its successor states. The district was established in 1977 by merging the former districts of Soltau and Fallingbostel as Soltau-Fallingbostel (German pronunciation: [ˈzɔltaʊ falɪŋˈbɔstəl]). On 1 August 2011 it was renamed to Heidekreis.

The district includes the western half of the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide). Since this landscape is so characteristic for the district, it calls itself "the Heath District". The capital is Bad Fallingbostel, although it has only 11,800 inhabitants and is only the fifth largest town in the district.

The coat of arms displays:


Free municipalities


Unincorporated area

Cultural matters are looked after by those charged with communal cultural support within the towns and municipalities, the parishes, the banks, the Lüneburg Regional Association and private cultural initiatives.

The county is a member of the Lüneburg Regional Association (Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband), which looks after regional, cultural-political tasks.


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Wikipedia

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