Saterland

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Saterland
Coat of arms	Location

Administration
Country	Germany
State	Lower Saxony
District	Cloppenburg
Municipal subdivisions	4 districts
Mayor	Hubert Frye (CDU)
Basic statistics
Area	123.62 km² (47.7 sq mi)
Elevation	5 m (16 ft)
Population	12,896 (30/06/2005)
- Density	104 /km² (270 /sq mi)
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	CLP
Postal code	26683
Area codes	0 44 92 (Scharrel, Sedelsberg) 0 44 98 (Ramsloh, Strücklingen)
Website	www.saterland.de Coordinates: 53°2′00″N 7°43′00″E / 53.033333, 7.716667

Saterland (Saterland Frisian: Seelterlound) is a municipality in the district of Cloppenburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated between the cities of Leer, Cloppenburg, and Oldenburg.

1 Division of the municipality
2 History
3 Notable places
4 External links

[edit] Division of the municipality

The municipality of Saterland was formed in 1974, when the smaller municipalities Strücklingen (Strukelje in Saterland Frisian), Ramsloh (Roomelse), Sedelsberg (Seeidelsbierich) and Scharrel (Schäddel) were merged.

A bilingual German-Saterland Frisian roadsign

[edit] History

In medieval times, Saterland was a sandy region occupying an area of about 15 km long by 1-4 km wide surrounded by marshes. It was settled between the 10th and 13th centuries by Frisians from East Frisia. Being relatively isolated, the inhabitants developed their own form of the East Frisian language, Saterland Frisian, which survives to this day. The "Saterfriesen," as the speakers of this language are called in German, are the smallest minority recognized by the federal government.

[edit] Notable places

On the area of the municipality of Saterland is the VLF transmitter DHO38, a large VLF transmitter of the German Navy for sending commands to submarines.