Ardey Hills

The Ardey Hills (German: Ardeygebirge or Ardey) are a range of wooded hills, up to 273.8 m above sea level (NN), in the territory of the city of Dortmund and the districts of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis and Unna in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The hills form part of the eastern Rhenish Massif and, to a lesser extent, to the Berg-Mark Hills (Bergisch-Märkisches Hügelland).

The Ardey Hills, together with the Haarstrang, run from east to west, separating two major natural units: the Westphalian Lowland including the Emscher Depression and Hellwegbörde in the north from the Süder Uplands and lower Sauerland in the south, the Ardey being counted as part of the Süder Uplands and the Haarstrang the Westphalian Lowland. From a topographical perspective, the Ardey Hills are the western foothills of the sparsely wooded and mainly agricultural Haarstrang. However it is different, not only from a cultural landscape point of view, but also geologically (a decisive factor being the carboniferous boundary near the surface). In the north, on the territory of the city of Dortmund, the Ardey Hills descend gradually into the plain of the Westphalian Lowland in the area of Münsterland. To the south and west they are bounded by the River Ruhr, their rugged slopes often dropping steeply into its valley. On those slopes the point where there is the maximum 165.2 m height difference, from the upper storage basin (ca. 261.5 m above NN) to the Hengsteysee (96.3 m above NN), is used by the pumped-storage power station of Koepchenwerk in Herdecke to generate electricity from hydropower.

The following cities and towns are located in or at the Ardey Hills along the Ruhr − from east-northeast to west-southwest −: Fröndenberg, Unna, Holzwickede, Schwerte, Dortmund, Herdecke, Wetter and Witten.

Location: Germany.

Mountain range data from Wikidata (CC0). Elevation is the height of the highest peak.