Salzgitter (; Eastphalian: Soltgitter) is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren (metropolitan areas) of Lower Saxony. With 107,674 inhabitants and (as of 2015), it is the largest city by area in Lower Saxony and one of the largest in Germany. Salzgitter originated as a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, and is today made up of 31 boroughs, which are relatively compact conurbations with wide stretches of open country between them.
The city is part of two urban areas, Hildesheim and Braunschweig, because of its uneven distribution of urban quarters. Due to the uneven population distribution, the density of the areas within the Braunschweig urban area is over 1,500 people per km² with the Lebenstedt area having over 3,000 people per km². Over 70% (76,500) of the population lives within the urban area of Braunschweig, but most of the area is within the urban area of Hildesheim. 54.1% (41,000 people) of the city's population within the Braunschweig urban agglomeration area are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
The city's main shopping street is in the borough of Lebenstedt, and the central business district is in Salzgitter-Bad. The city is connected to the Mittellandkanal and the Elbe Lateral Canal by a distributary. The nearest metropolises are Braunschweig, about to the northeast, and Hanover, about to the northwest. The population of the City of Salzgitter has exceeded 100,000 inhabitants since its foundation in 1942 (which made it a city () in contrast to a town () by the German definition), when it was still called Watenstedt-Salzgitter. Beside Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Eisenhüttenstadt, Salzgitter is one of the few cities in Germany founded during the 20th century.
Name Until 31 March 1942, "Salzgitter" was the name of a town where the borough Salzgitter-Bad now is. From then until 1951, "Salzgitter" was the name of a borough of the city Watenstedt-Salzgitter that existed at the time. In 1951, the borough Salzgitter was renamed Salzgitter-Bad; the name Salzgitter, having thus been freed up, became the new and more succinct name of the city that had been called "Watenstedt-Salzgitter" until then. (Nowadays, "Salzgitter-Watenstedt" is the name of a small borough with a few hundred inhabitants.)
Geography Salzgitter is located in a wide dell coated with loess, between the Oderwald Forest and the Salzgitter-Höhenzug ("Salzgitter Hills"). The city stretches up to from north to south and up to from east to west. The highest point is the hill Hamberg (), located northwest of Salzgitter-Bad.
Neighbouring municipalities The following cities, towns and municipalities, listed clockwise beginning in the northeast, border on the city of Salzgitter. (As Salzgitter was founded on the area of the district of Wolfenbüttel, that district borders on Salzgitter in the west and in the east and is therefore listed twice.)
Braunschweig (independent city) in the Landkreis Wolfenbüttel: City of Wolfenbüttel, Cramme, Flöthe (both belonging to Samtgemeinde Oderwald), Gielde (Samtgemeinde Schladen) in the Landkreis Goslar: Liebenburg, Wallmoden, Samtgemeinde Lutter am Barenberge in the Landkreis Wolfenbüttel: Sehlde, Haverlah, Elbe, Baddeckenstedt, Burgdorf bei Salzgitter (all Samtgemeinde Baddeckenstedt) in the Landkreis Hildesheim: Söhlde in the Landkreis Peine: Lengede, Vechelde
City structure
The area of the City of Salzgitter consists of 31 boroughs (; often called villages): Bad, Barum, Beddingen, Beinum, Bleckenstedt, Bruchmachtersen, Calbecht, Drütte, Engelnstedt, Engerode, Flachstöckheim, Gebhardshagen, Gitter, Groß Mahner, Hallendorf, Heerte, Hohenrode, Immendorf, Lebenstedt, Lesse, Lichtenberg, Lobmachtersen, Ohlendorf, Osterlinde, Reppner, Ringelheim, Salder, Sauingen, Thiede, Üfingen and Watenstedt.
These 31 boroughs are combined to 7 towns (). Each town has an elected mayor and town council.
The towns with their boroughs are: Town North: Lebenstedt, Salder, Bruchmachtersen, Engelnstedt Town Northeast: Thiede, Beddingen, Üfingen, Sauingen Town Northwest: Lichtenberg, Osterlinde, Reppner, Lesse Town East: Hallendorf, Bleckenstedt, Drütte, Immendorf, Watenstedt Town South: Bad, Gitter, Groß Mahner, Ringelheim, Hohenrode Town Southeast: Flachstöckheim, Barum, Beinum, Lobmachtersen, Ohlendorf Town West: Gebhardshagen, Calbecht, Engerode, Heerte
History 1300–1982 Salzgitter originated in the beginning of the 14th century around salt springs near the village Verpstedt (later Vöppstedt). The name was derived from the neighbouring village Gitter (nowadays a city borough) as "up dem solte to Gytere", which means "salt near Gitter"; the first mention was in 1347. After 200 years of salt production at various springs, the peasants in the area which is nowadays Salzgitter were chartered around 1350, but lost municipal law again when being transferred to the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the beginning of the 16th century. Later, Salzgitter belonged to the diocese of Hildesheim. When the diocese was transferred to Prussia in 1803, the municipal law was reconfirmed, but taken away once more in 1815, when Salzgitter became part of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1830, a brine bath was established in Salzgitter.
After the Kingdom of Hanover was transferred to Prussia in 1866, Salzgitter became a Prussian municipality, which was chartered again in 1929. Prior to that, the towns Vorsalz and Liebenhall had been incorporated (in 1926 and 1928, respectively). Salzgitter now belonged to the Landkreis (district) of Goslar and included, apart from Salzgitter itself, also some small settlements like Gittertor, which is nowadays part of Salzgitter-Bad. In 1936, Kniestedt was incorporated; it is also part of Salzgitter-Bad now.
Due to the large iron ore body in Salzgitter, which had been mentioned first in 1310, the National Socialists founded the "Reichswerke Hermann Göring" for ore mining and iron production in 1937. In order to facilitate an unobstructed development of the smelting works, a unique administration structure in the whole area was conceived. Therefore, it was decreed in the Order about the area settlement around the Hermann-Göring-Werke Salzgitter, effective from 1 April 1942, to form a unified city district (independent city). Towards this aim, the town of Salzgitter and the municipalities Beinum, Flachstöckheim, Groß-Mahner, Hohenrode, Ohlendorf and Ringelheim (7 in total, all belonging to the Landkreis Goslar) and Barum, Beddingen, Bleckenstedt, Bruchmachtersen, Calbecht, Drütte, Engelnstedt, Engerode, Gebhardshagen, Hallendorf, Heerte, Immendorf, Lebenstedt, Lesse, Lichtenberg, Lobmachtersen, Osterlinde, Reppner, Salder, Thiede-Steterburg (nowadays simply Thiede) and Watenstedt (21 in total, all belonging to the Landkreis Wolfenbüttel) were merged to form the Stadtkreis Watenstedt-Salzgitter. As the neighbouring municipality Gitter had already been incorporated in 1938, the young city initially comprised 29 boroughs in 1942. Together with the remainder of the district of Goslar, the new independent municipality was integrated into the Free State of Brunswick. In return, Braunschweig transferred the Landkreis Holzminden to the Prussian Province of Hanover. In October, 1942, the SS established the Drütte concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, to provide slave labour for the Hermann Göring Works.United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Neuengamme. Accessed 18 April 2007. This large subcamp held 2,800 inmates. There were three concentration camps located in Salzgitter. During the war, Salzgitter was severely damaged by several American and British bombings. After the war, the State of Braunschweig became part of the Land Lower Saxony, and Watenstedt-Salzgitter became an Independent City in the "Administrative District of Braunschweig" (later Regierungsbezirk Braunschweig).
In 1951, the city was renamed to "Stadt Salzgitter" (City of Salzgitter), while the borough Salzgitter was renamed to "Salzgitter-Bad", referring to the brine bath there. In the course of the local administrative reform of Lower-Saxony effective from 1 March 1974, the municipalities Üfingen and Sauingen (formerly Landkreis Wolfenbüttel) were incorporated, increasing the number of boroughs to 31. Iron ore continued to be mined in Salzgitter until 1982; in the former mine Schacht Konrad (Konrad mine), an ultimate disposal place for radioactive waste has been planned since 1975.
Modern history In February 2024, MAN Truck & Bus announced plans to expand its global parts logistics center in Salzgitter by nearly 53,000 square meters, bringing the total footprint to 230,000 square meters.
Population development Population figures in order to the then area, i.e. until 1942 the contemporary quarter Salzgitter-Bad and from 1942 on the Independent City Watenstedt-Salzgitter and Salzgitter respectively. 76% of the population was developing near the City Braunschweig due to urbanization, closer proximity to a major city and other factors. Although a high concentration of the population lives near the larger City Braunschweig, most of the area is near the Hildesheim agglomeration or in other parts Population Year Population 1821 2,258 1848 2,654 1871 2,752 1885 2,681 1905 2,837 1925 2,852 1933 19,164 1942 108,480 1946 93,260 1948 110,247 1950 108,888 6 June 1961 ¹ 110,200 1965 115,500 1970 119,000 1975 119,000 1980 113,500 25 May 1987 111,069 1989 111,676 30 June 1997 116,300 October 2003 109,632 September 2004 108,614 February 2005 108,174 December 2015 101,079 December 2016 103,668 December 2024 104,970
Immigration
Salzgitter has the highest share of migrants to Germans in Lower Saxony as it was a cheaper place for guest workers to reside. The foreigner-born population was 37,048 (32.8% of the total population) in 2023. 60.2% of Salzgitter residents had a migration background and the majority are from the Middle Eastern or Eastern European countries. Over 75% of the population below 18 years of age has a migration background.
In 2017, they city council implemented a ban on accepting asylum seekers as the city had an existing number of asylum seekers who needed to integrate. This ban was later taken down as the population of the city started to spike down drastically and the city started to have a lack of staff for services.
The areas with the highest percentage of migrants in Salzgitter are Steterburg with 57.5%, Seeviertel with 55.7%, Lebenstedt with 54.1%, Lichtenberg with 52.1%, Watenstedt with 48.4% and Bad with 46.4%. Most of the migrants live within the Braunschweig urban agglomeration.
About 17.5% of the total population is Muslim in 2024, having the highest percentage of Muslims in the whole state and one of the highest in Germany. The percentage of people with an immigration background in Salzgitter is projected to be 60% to 75% in the year 2030
Largest groups of foreign residentsNationality Population (2024) 10,421 6,632 6,139 2,591 2,579 2,259 1,349 1,022 815 745 622
Braunschweig-Salgitter-Wolfsburg Area