TheOre Mountain Basin[1] orErzgebirge Basin[2] (German:Erzgebirgsbecken) is anatural region in the German federal state ofSaxony, that is part of theSaxon Lowland. To the north it borders on theMulde Loess Hills and to the south on several natural regions in theSaxon Highlands and Uplands.
The basin is a structural depression running from northeast to southwest in the Ore Mountainpeneplain that is filled with Devonian and Carboniferous sediments.[2] The main communications from theOre Mountains follow the valleys downhill and are collected by a major routeway to the north that follows this furrow and passes through the cities ofZwickau andChemnitz.[3]
According to current categorisation the Upper Pleißeland (Obere Pleißeland), immediately to the east of the towns ofWerdau andCrimmitschau, is also counted as part of the basin.[4][5]
The Ore Mountain Basin is an important centre of population in Saxony and a historically important industrial region, not least because of the Zwickau Field which contained most of East Germany's very minor reserves of coal and included the biggestformer hard coal mining region in Saxony.[1][3]