Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Niedersachsen (German) Neddersassen (Low German) Läichsaksen (Saterland Frisian) | |
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Interactive map of Lower Saxony | |
| Coordinates: 52°45′22″N 9°23′35″E / 52.75611°N 9.39306°E | |
| Country | Germany |
| Capital | Hanover |
| Government | |
| • Body | Landtag of Lower Saxony |
| • Minister-President | Olaf Lies (SPD) |
| • Governing parties | SPD / Greens |
| • Bundesrat votes | 6 (of 69) |
| • Bundestag seats | 65 (of 630) (as of 2025) |
| Area | |
• Total | 47,709.90 km2 (18,420.90 sq mi) |
| Population (31 December 2023) | |
• Total | 8,161,981 |
| • Density | 171.0752/km2 (443.0828/sq mi) |
| GDP | |
| • Total | €399.397 billion (2025) |
| • Per capita | €49,646 (2025) |
| Time zone | UTC+1 (CET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+2 (CEST) |
| ISO 3166 code | DE-NI |
| NUTS Region | DE9 |
| HDI (2022) | 0.936 very high · 10th of 16 |
| Website | www |
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Lower Saxony is a coastal state (Land) in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with 47,614 km2 (18,384 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are spoken to varying degrees.
Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. The state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other its seaport, Bremerhaven (which is a semi-exclave, as it has a coastline). Lower Saxony thus borders more neighbours than any other single Bundesland. The state's largest cities are the state capital Hanover, Braunschweig (Brunswick), Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg, Göttingen, Salzgitter, Hildesheim, mainly situated in its central and southern parts, except Oldenburg.
Lower Saxony is the only Bundesland that encompasses both maritime and mountainous areas. The northwestern area of the state, on the coast of the North Sea, is called East Frisia and the seven East Frisian Islands offshore are popular with tourists. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, an economically emerging but rather sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plain, is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the Central Uplands: the Weser Uplands and the Harz Mountains. Between these two lie the Lower Saxon Hills, a range of low ridges.
The region in the northeast, the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide), is the largest heathland area of Germany. In the Middle Ages, the town of Lüneburg was wealthy due to salt-mining and the salt trade. To the north the Elbe valley separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Brandenburg. The left banks of the Elbe downstream Hamburg are known as the Altes Land (Old Country). Due to its gentle local climate and fertile soil, it is the state's largest area of fruit farming, its chief produce being apples.
The modern state of Lower Saxony was created from parts of the British occupation zone after World War II by the merger of the State of Hanover with the three smaller free states of Braunschweig, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe on 1 November 1946. As most of the new state's territory consisted of the historic Kingdom of Hanover, Lower Saxony adopted its coat of arms and other symbols.