Schaumburg Forest

The Schaumburg Forest (German: Schaumburger Wald, pronounced [ˈʃaʊmbʊʁgɐ ˈvalt]) is a wooded region, about 80 m above sea level (NN) with an area of around 40 km², in the district of Schaumburg in the German federal state of Lower Saxony.

Location

The Schaumburg Forest lies immediately east of the Lower Saxony's state border with North Rhine-Westphalia in the northwestern part of the district of Schaumburg not far east of the River Weser, south of the Rehburg Hills and northwest of the Mittelland Canal. It extends from Wölpinghausen in the north, to Pollhagen and Meerbeck in the east (on the far side and east of the county town of Stadthagen and the town of Obernkirchen), to Bückeburg in the south, to the town of Minden in the southwest and the town of Petershagen and municipality of Wiedensahl in the west. To the north it almost borders, with the Rehburg Hills, on the district of Nienburg.

The Schaumburg Forest, which is 19.5 km long and up to 4 km wide, lies on the North German Plain at between about 45 and 80 m above NN; its highest point is west of the L 371 state road (Landesstraße) from Wölpinghausen in the north to Pollhagen in the south.

The boundary of Minden-Lübbecke district which lies in North Rhine-Westphalia, runs almost exactly along the northwest border of the forest. That said, several tongues of wood project into Westphalian territory, (e.g. south of Petershagen-Borstel). In addition the numerous nearby copses in the vicinity of the town of Petershagen may be counted as part of the Schaumburg Forest in a broader sense, so that Minden-Lübbecke can claim part of the forest for itself.

A wide track called the Landwehrallee runs through the eastern areas of the central part of the Schaumburg Forest roughly parallel to the Mittelland Canal and close to the edge of the forest.