A fragmented protected landscape on the southwestern flank of the Dinkelberg plateau, preserving karst forests, meadows, and woodland near Lörrach.
Südwestlicher Dinkelberg
Südwestlicher Dinkelberg is a designated landscape protection area (Landschaftsschutzgebiet) in the Landkreis Lörrach of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It covers roughly 1,390 hectares across two separate tracts of land on the southwestern edge of the Dinkelberg plateau, which forms the landscape bridge between the High Rhine valley and the Black Forest. One section lies southeast of the town of Lörrach and surrounds the wooded area known as the Eiserne Hand, reaching down to the municipality of Inzlingen. The second section extends southwest of Inzlingen across the Rührberg toward the Herten and Degerfelden districts of Rheinfelden.
The area was placed under protection on 6 May 2013 through an ordinance issued by the Landratsamt Lörrach, at the same time replacing an older 1986 protection order covering the Wasserschloss Inzlingen. The protection serves to conserve the diversity, character, and beauty of the natural landscape, to maintain a near-natural rural balance within the densely settled Lörrach–Basel corridor, and to safeguard a landscape of notable ornithological and geological value.
The protected area belongs to two natural regions of the High Rhine landscape system: the Hochrheintal and the Dinkelberg itself. Its combination of woodland communities, traditional orchard meadows, dry grasslands, mires, and karst landforms gives it both ecological significance and value as a nearby natural recreation space for the surrounding communities.
