In eastern Germany, enormous pits carved into the landscape by decades of lignite mining are being transformed into a vast network of lakes, wetlands and restored land. The Lusatian Lakeland, spread across Brandenburg and Saxony between Berlin and Dresden, is being created by flooding former open-cast mines and reshaping their surroundings. The tourist destination now comprises 23 post-mining lakes covering about 14,000 hectares of water. The transformation began with Lake Senftenberg in 1967 and has continued for decades, turning one of Germany's major coal-producing regions into a new water landscape. The project combines environmental restoration with tourism, recreation and long-term rehabilitation of land heavily altered by mining.
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