User:Lothar von Richthofen/Hamburg-Neuwerk

Hamburg-Neuwerk is a quarter of the borough of Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg composed of Neuwerk and the uninhabited islands of Scharhörn and Nigehörn, as well as several nearby sandbars that are exposed at low tide.

Geography

The islands of Hamburg-Neuwerk are located in the southeast corner of the North Sea, in the mouth of the Elbe river. The nearest large town on the mainland is the port of Cuxhaven, located 15 km south on the coast of Lower Saxony; the centre of Hamburg itself lies approximately 110 km upriver. Hamburg-Neuwerk is an exclave of Hamburg proper and is only accessible from the city by travelling through waters belonging to Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.

Hamburg-Neuwerk is also home to all parts of the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, which is in turn part of the larger Wadden Sea UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• 
  Neuwerk
• 
  Scharhörn (foreground) and Nigehörn (background)
• 
  All three islands

Administrative history

For over 700 years, Neuwerk has—with a few interruptions—belonged to the city of Hamburg. In 1394, Neuwerk came under the administration of the newly-founded amt of Ritzebüttel (modern-day Cuxhaven) after a feud with the Knights of Lappe. As a result of the Greater Hamburg Act, Cuxhaven and Neuwerk in 1937 became part of of Prussia. When Prussia was officially dissolved by the Allied Control Council in 1947, Neuwerk and Cuxhaven passed to the administration of Lower Saxony. In 1969, an agreement signed between Lower Saxony and Hamburg (the "Cuxhaven Treaty") passed control of the islands of Neuwerk and Scharhörn to Hamburg while ceding rights to the port of Cuxhaven to Lower Saxony. Hamburg was seeking to secure access to a potential deep-water port by reassuming control of the Neuwerk area, but this plan remains unrealised.