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Bad Salzdetfurth is situated in the Innerste mountainous region, a northern foothill of the Central German Uplands. In the north the town borders onto the Hildesheimer Börde and in the south onto the Harz Foreland. In the north the river Innerste runs through the town area between the villages Hockeln, Listringen, Heinde, Klein Düngen and Groß Düngen as well as the estate Walshausen in western direction.

The main village Bad Salzdetfurth is located in a valley. The river Lamme runs through the village in northern direction and discharges near Groß Düngen in the Innerste. Bad Salzdetfurth is embedded in a beech mixed forest, which belongs west of the principal town to the Hildesheimer Forest and east of the principal town to the Saubergen.

The highest elevation of the town area is situated with ca. 317 meters above sea level in the Saubergen near Hammerstein's Heights.

History

It seems probable that first humans have lived here in the area of the present Bad Salzdetfurth, during the warm periods of the last glacial epoch. The land north and south of the river Lamme-narrow is seen as the town's primal cell. An old trade route in north-south direction crosses the river Lamme-narrow in a ford. A first rual small settlement with the name Detfurth (also: Detvorde, Thietforde or Detforde, coming from 'Det' respectively 'Thiet', nation respectively peoples) was created here already before the Christianisation. The favourable traffic situation ensured that a church was built here around the 9th-century, which received the rank of an Archdeaconry church. South of the Lamme-narrow, the beginnigs of the villages and Bodenburg and Wehrstedt also go back to the 9th and 10th-century.

It is not known when and by whom the village Bad Salzdetfurth was founded. According to a local tale, a knight of Steinberg got lost in the expansive forest areas while hunting a fleeting stag. Plagued by thirst, he drank from a spring, which he found at the foot of the Lamme. But instead of fresh water, salt water (brine water) gushed from the spring. After the initial unease, the knight realised, that this discovery could bring him wealth. Table salt was at that time, a sought-after and valuable commodity. The knight ordered salters to this place, who rooted out the woods and built constructions for salt winning.

Thus the created village was first seen as part of the already existing village Detfurth and named as 'dat Solt to Detforde' (that salt to Detforde). Historically documented is only, that the family von Steinberg had rich estates at their disposal in the Hildesheimer land. What's more, the founding of Bad Salzdetfurth, goes back in all probability to the discovery of the salt deposits.