Drochtersen is a municipality in the district Stade

Stade

Stade is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany and part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region . It is the seat of the district named after it...

, in Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

 (Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

). It is located 45 km north west of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

.

It belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, which was first ruled in personal union

Personal union

A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...

 by the Swedish and from 1715 on by the Hanoverian Crown. In 1823 the Duchy was abolished and its territory became part of the Stade Region

Stade (region)

The Stade Region emerged in 1823 by an administrative reorganisation of the dominions of the Kingdom of Hanover, a sovereign state, whose then territory is almost completely part of today's German federal state of Lower Saxony...

.

Notable places

The Drochtersen Shot Tower

Drochtersen Shot Tower

The Drochtersen Shot Tower is a 42 metre high shot tower at Drochtersen, Lower Saxony, Germany. The Drochtersen Shot Tower is property of the "Jagd-Schrot & Hagel-Fabrik Häntler & Natermann" but it is not in use any more....

 is a 42 meter high shot tower

Shot tower

thumb|The Shot Tower, Bristol, EnglandA shot tower is a tower designed for the production of shot balls by freefall of molten lead, which is then caught in a water basin. The shot is used for projectiles in firearms.-Process:...

owned by the Haentler & Natermann Jagd-Schrot & Hagel-Fabrik (Hunt pellet and hail fabrication) factory for the production of shot balls at the Elbe. This tower is not in use any more.