Schüttorf (Northern Low Saxon: Schüttrup) is a town in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim in southwesternmost Lower Saxony near the Dutch border and the boundary with Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia). The town of Schüttorf forms with the surrounding communities the Joint Community (Samtgemeinde) of Schüttorf. It is the district's oldest town. It lies on the river Vechte, roughly 5 km east of Bad Bentheim, and 20 km southeast of Nordhorn. Geography Location and landscape description The town of Schüttorf lies in southwesternmost Lower Saxony and in the westernmost part of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is roughly 10 km to the Dutch border. With regards to the cultural makeup and to the natural environment, it lies in a transitional zone between the Emsland and Westphalia. The surroundings may be characterized as settled countryside. Middle centres in the area are, among others, Nordhorn and Rheine. The town is crossed through the middle southeast to northwest by the river Vechte, which farther downstream flows into the Netherlands. The town's highest point rises to 48 m above sea level. Schüttorf lies in the foothills of the Bentheimer Berg, a great sandstone formation from the Cretaceous rising to 80 m and a wooded western outlier of the Teutoburg Forest. Only a small piece of the Bentheim Forest is in the town. All together, roughly 89 ha of woodland is found within the town, making up 8% of the town's total land area. North of the town is found a former heathland, which sees mainly agronomic use nowadays. There were still broad heathlands in the town just before the First World War. The last heath was converted to agricultural land in 1993. A peculiarity was the dune area in Schüttorf, which consisted of windblown sand, but this was quarried and exploited in the mid-20th century. The outlying centre where these dunes were is, however, still popularly called “Marokko” or, in Low German, Witten Over (“White Shore”), referring to the area's “desertlike” appearance. There are quite a number of open areas around the town, mainly used for agriculture. Residential areas are characterized by one-family dwellings. There are no genuine highrises in town. With the completion of the Schüttorfer Kreuz (“Schüttorf Cross”), an Autobahn cloverleaf formed by the A 30 and the A 31, greater commercial and industrial areas were laid out in the town's northeast near this interchange in 2004 and 2005. A beautiful floodplain landscape