LÜNEBURGER HEIDE, a district of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, lying between the Aller and the Elbe and intersected by the railways Harburg-Hanover and Bremen-Stendal. Its main character is that of a broad saddle-back, running for 55 m. from S.E. to N.W. of a mean elevation of about 250 ft. and attaining its greatest height in the Wilseder Berg (550 ft.) at its northern end. The soil is quartz sand and is chiefly covered with heather and brushwood. In the north, and in the deep valleys through which the streams descend to the plain, there are extensive forests of oak, birch and beech, and in the south, of fir and larch. Though the climate is raw and good soil rare, the heath is not unfertile. Its main products are sheep—the celebrated Heidschnucken breed,—potatoes, bilberries, cranberries and honey. The district is also remarkable for the numerous Hun barrows found scattered throughout its whole extent.
See Rabe, Die Lüneburger Heide und die Bewirthschaftung der Heidhöfe (Jena, 1900); Kniep, Führer durch die Lüneburger Heide (Hanover, 1900); Linde, Die Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg, 1905), and Kück, Das alte Bauernleben der Lüneburger Heide (Leipzig, 1906).