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Teutoburg Forest

forest in Germany

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ109773
Source-derived summary

The Teutoburg Forest ( TEW-tə-burg; German: Teutoburger Wald [ˈtɔʏtoˌbʊʁɡɐ ˈvalt] ) is a range of low, forested hills in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the 17th century, the official name of the hill ridge was Osning. It was first renamed the Teutoburg Forest in 1616 in commemoration of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, which most likely took place at Kalkriese instead.

Geography

The Teutoburg Forest is a peripheral section in the north of the German Central Uplands, and forms a long narrow range of hills (comprising three ridges) extending from the eastern surroundings of Paderborn in the south to the western surroundings of Osnabrück in the northwest. South of the city centre of Bielefeld, a gap called the Bielefeld Pass bisects the range into the Northern Teutoburg Forest (two thirds) and Southern Teutoburg Forest (one third). In addition, the northeastern and southwestern ridges are cut by the exits of the longitudinal valleys between the ridges.

The geologically oldest ridge is the northeastern one, which consists of limestone of the Triassic.

Most of the ridges and part of the valley are covered by deciduous forest. Parts of the valley areas are used for agriculture, especially the production of cereals.

The highest elevation in the Southern Teutoburg Forest is the Velmerstot (468 m or 1,535 ft) south of Horn-Bad Meinberg.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Teutoburg Forest” as forest in Germany. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1616—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Teutoburg, Forest and forest can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as forest in Germany. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q109773. VIAF identifies the subject as 239889993. The Library of Congress control number is sh85134237. Authority coordinates are 51.896, 8.814. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1616.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Teutoburg Forest”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Teutoburg Forest primary sources, Teutoburg Forest archive and Teutoburg research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Teutoburg Forest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.