was filled with fluvial sand, and locally, sand dunes were blown up by the wind. Within the Vechte Valley, the river deposited Holocene – that is, post-ice-age – sands and floodplain loam. The mainly sandy, partly loamy or moory soils of the valley sand plates and the narrow river floodplain are relatively sparse in soil quality, ranking between 11 and 30 on the scale used in Germany (which goes up to 100). The outliers of the Bentheim Hill are made up of Bentheim sandstone, a sandstone from the Early Cretaceous. These heights are the northwesternmost outposts of the Central European Uplands. Towards the surface are, as a general rule, clayey soils and till loam. The clay is also used by industry, such as at the brickyard in Suddendorf. Climate Schüttorf lies in the Mid-European Temperate Zone. The average yearly temperature is 8.5 °C, the mean air pressure is 1015.2 hPa and the mean yearly precipitation amounts to between 700 and 800 mm. The climate is Subatlantic with rather mild winters and fairly warm summers. In Schüttorf itself, there is no weather station run by the German Weather Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst). The nearest weather station is Nordhorn, whose weather is not notably different from Schüttorf's. Lower Saxony's state hydrological service maintains a water quality monitoring station in Samern where the Vechte's water levels and water quality are measured and documented. Population Schüttorf has 11,711 inhabitants (as of 18 April 2005) in an area of 11.23 km2, 51.3% of whom are female. The town's population density is 1027/km2. Evangelical-Reformed Christians account for 40.7% of the town's population, whereas 22.1% are Catholic, 14.9% are Lutheran and 22% either hold no religious beliefs or belong to other faiths. There are 942 foreigners (8%) living in Schüttorf, among whom the biggest group is Turkish nationals (448), and the second-biggest Dutch nationals (187). There are 1,894 people (16.2%) living in Schüttorf who are German nationals, but whose background is foreign (as of 1 January 2006). Population development The first population count for Schüttorf is yielded by a document from Claus von Tecklenburg from the year 1399, which clearly speaks of a total of 350 persons. What is known from this is that in 1399, Schüttorf had at least 52 townsmen, as they are named in the document. However, it seems unlikely that there were considerably more. Going by average family size, it seems likelier that at