German Democratic Republic [antikvár]

TERRITORY AND POPULATION Frontiers. The German Democratic Republic has an area of some 108,200 square kilometres. In the east the GDR is bounded by the People's Republic of Poland (456 kilometres), in the south by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (430 kilometres) and in the west by the German Federal Republic (1,381 kilometres). The Baltic Sea forms the natural border in the north. The frontier in the east on the Oder and Neisse rivers was laid down in the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 and ratified as peace frontier by both states in a treaty signed between the GDR and the People's Republic of Poland. Physical Features. The GDR has a share in two natural physical regions, the Central European lowland and the sub-alpine region. The lowland is a large depression in which those geological formations that form the uplands in the south are covered with thick layers of sedimentary rocks. Only in a few places, for instance, on the Isle of Rügen (chalk) and in Rüdersdorf near Berlin (shell lime), do the rocks originating in the older geological periods come to the surface. Structure and form indicate that this lowland region came into being during the Quaternary. During the Elster, Saale and Weichsel glacial periods the inland ice from the north advanced far to the south depositing huge masses of rock fragment, boulders, sand, marl and clay (terminal moraine). The hill ranges formed by these end moraines which span the north of the GDR from north-west to south-east indicate that the retreating ice of the last glacial period remained stationary for lengthy periods. These moraine formations are preceded by sandy areas and primeval valleys, of which the River Elbe flows through the largest. The numerous lakes in the Mecklenburg and Brandenburg regions are highly popular holiday and recreation areas. The sub-alpine region of the GDR is part of the European sub-alpine belt running from east to west and is made up of many geological structures and forms. The mountainous areas and massifs, which reach a height of over 1,000 metres, originated in the older geological periods and contain various mineral resources. The most im- 7