Sophienhof (Harztor)
human settlement in Germany

Sophienhof is a village in the municipality of Harztor in the district of Nordhausen in the German federal state of Thuringia. It is located approximately 6 kilometers to the north of Ilfeld.
Location
Sophienhof is situated in the so-called Hohnstein Forest (Hohnsteiner Forst), that once belonged to the counts of Stolberg, in northwest Thuringia only a few kilometres away from the state borders with Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony. The village is only accessible by motor vehicles over a secondary road from Rothesütte or from the B 81 federal road between Hasselfelde and Ilfeld. In addition, several walking trails run from surrounding villages to Sophienhof.
Sophienhof has a halt on the Harz Railway, which is located in the forest to the west outside the village. There is also a Harzer Wandernadel hiking checkpoint (no. 97) in the village by the Ziegenalm cafe.
History
The village was probably established in the 17th century from a collection of foresters' huts and was first mentioned in 1645 (under another name). In 1710, Count Christian Ernest of Stolberg-Wernigerode inherited the County of Wernigerode and Hohnstein Forest.
“Sophienhof (Harztor)” enters the record as human settlement in Germany. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sophienhof, Harztor and human can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q572258. VIAF identifies the subject as 247416521. Authority coordinates are 51.634, 10.791. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1645 and 1710.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sophienhof (Harztor)” 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.