Geography and History
The Altes Land is divided into three "miles" (German Meilen); the first, second and third miles. These miles are zones along the banks of the Elbe river. The first mile, between the rivers Schwinge and Lühe, was first dyked and then settled in around 1140. The second mile is the area east of the first between the Lühe and the Este, an area which was dyked at the end of the 12th century. The third mile, called Terra Nova (new land), between the Este and the Elbe, was only dyked at the end of the 15th century when the area was especially hard-hit by storm tides.
As of 2008 tourism plays a major role in the local economy, particularly during the cherry blossom and apple blossom seasons. However, parts of the orchard plantations are slowly being displaced by residential developments. Many of these new homes are then sold or rented to commuters who work in nearby Hamburg.
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“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)