Braunlage

Braunlage (bʁaʊ̯nˈlaːɡə) is a town and health resort in the Goslar district of Lower Saxony in Germany. Situated within the Harz mountain range, south of the Brocken massif, Braunlage's main business is tourism, particularly skiing. Nearby ski resorts include the Sonnenberg and the slopes on the Wurmberg. Braunlage is located on the Warme Bode, a headstream of the river Bode, close to the border with Elend in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The municipal area stretches along the south-eastern rim of the Harz National Park from an elevation of up to at the summit of the Wurmberg. Other peaks in the vicinity include the Achtermannshöhe and the Hahnenklee Crags. The town consists of three districts: Braunlage proper Hohegeiß*, incorporated on 1 July 1972 Sankt Andreasberg**, incorporated on 1 November 2011 with the village of Königskrug with the villages of Sonnenberg, Oderhaus, Oderbrück, Oderberg, Odertaler Sägemühle and Silberhütte Braunlage is on the Bundesstraße B4 between Braunschweig and Nordhausen and the B27 from Blankenburg to Göttingen. Local buses run between Braunlage and the nearby communities of Bad Harzburg, Sankt Andreasberg, Schierke, Wernigerode, Hohegeiß, Bad Sachsa, Nordhausen, Bad Lauterberg, Herzberg and Clausthal-Zellerfeld. Braunlage used to be served by the South Harz Railway Company, which provided a link to the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways via Sorge, but service ceased in 1958. First mentioned as Brunla in 1227, the town started out as a pit settlement in the Harz forests. It appeared as Brunenlo in a 1253 register of the Saxon counts of Regenstein and was revived when their successors, the Counts of Blankenburg, established an ironworks here in 1561. With the extinction of the Blankenburg dynasty in 1599 Braunlage fell to the Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. In the 17th century it was a small Brunswick market town in the west corner of the former Blankenburg lands. Tourism developed from the late 19th century onwards and other branches of business were forestry and a large granite quarry on the Wurmberg.