Melle Hills

Parts of the TERRA.vita Nature Park are located on the Melle Hills. Although they rise around 6 kilometres south of the main ridge of the Wiehen Hills, they are sometimes included as part of the latter. The small hill range lies between the town of Melle to the south, the villages of Bakum in the southwest, and Eicken-Bruche to the south-southeast, the Mell suburb of Buer to the northeast with its villages Barkhausen to the east and Holzhausen to the north and the Melle suburb of Oldendorf to the west; to the north-northwest lies the Melle estate of Gut Ostenwalde. Most of it is drained by the southwest flowing Zwickenbach, whose water flows via the Else and Werre eastwards to the Weser.

The Melle Hills belong to the major unit group of the Lower Weser Uplands (No. 53), the major unit of the Osnabrück Uplands (535), the sub-unit of Northern Osnabrück Uplands (535.0) and the natural region of the Melle Heights (535.03). The landscape leads west to northwest into the natural area Schledehauser Hügelland (535.02). To the south it leads into the natural region of the Else Depression (531.10), which belongs to the subunit of the Else-Werre-Valley (531.1), and to the east into the natural region of the Quernheim Hills (531.01) and to the north in the natural area of the Meesdorf Heights (531.00), both of which belong to the major unit of the Ravensberg Hills (531) and subunit of Quernheim Hill Country (531.0).^[3][4]

The elevations of the Melle Hills include  - sorted by height in metres (m) above NHN:

• Adolfsberg ( 220 m, south-south-west summit; 215 m, north-north-east summit) ^[5]
• Diedrichsberg (219 m);^[2] with the Diedrichsburg
• Eickener Egge ( 207.5 m);^[5] with Ottoshöhe observation tower
• Stuckenberg ( 207.5 m);^[5] with Friedenshöhe observation tower

The contiguous forest of the Melle Hills covers around 8 km². Parts of the "Wiehen Hills and Northern Osnabrück Uplands" (CDDA - No. 390425; 2009 designated; 288,348 km²).^[6]