With an area of 47,624 km² and nearly eight million inhabitants, Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen ) lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen Länder (states) of Germany. In rural areas Low German is still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining.---------------------Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony. The state's principal cities include Hannover, Braunschweig (Brunswick), Osnabrück, Oldenburg, and Göttingen. ----------------------------------------- The northwestern portion of Lower Saxony is a part of Frisia; it is called Ostfriesland (East Frisia) and lies on the coast of the North Sea. It includes seven islands, known as the East Frisian Islands. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the nothern parts of the German Central Highlands, the Weserbergland (Weser mountain range) and the Harz mountains. Lower Saxony's major cities and economic centres are mainly situated in its central and southern parts, namely Hannover, Hildesheim, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter and Braunschweig. Oldenburg, near the northwestern coastline, is another economic centre. The region in the northeast is called Lüneburger Heide (Lüneburg Heath), the largest heathland area of Germany and in medieval times wealthy due to salt mining and salt trade. To the north, the Elbe river separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. The banks just south of the Elbe are known as Altes Land (Old Country), the state's largest area of fruit farming, its chief produce being apples.