mportant contribution to the restructuring of the town into a service centre.
Today an industrial estate, the L�nepark, has been built on the terrain of the old Bundesgrenzschutz barracks with its new industrial premises for entrepreneurs. The promotion of trade and industry has resulted in many firms from the ICT area locating themselves there. In May 2006 the nearby Johannes Westphal Bridge was opened to traffic. This links the newly created L�nepark with the suburb of Goseburg on the far side of the Ilmenau. Since 5 October 2007 L�neburg has been able to call itself a Hanseatic Town; together with Stade it is one of only two towns in Lower Saxony to bear the title.
L�neburg is also a popular tourist destination within Germany because of the L�neburg Heath.
� 1943: Hagen and L�ne
� 1974: H�cklingen, Ochtmissen, Oedeme and Rettmer as well as the districts of Alt-Hagen, Ebensberg and Pflegerdorf/Gut Wieneb�ttel
L�neburg already had about 14,000 inhabitants in the Late Middle Ages and beginning of the Modern Period and was one of the largest 'cities' of its time, but its population shrank with the economic downturn to just 9,400 in 1757; then rose again to 10,400 in 1813. With the onset of industrialisation in the 19th century, population growth accelerated. If 13,000 were living in the town in 1855, by 1939 there were as many as 35,000. Shortly after the Second World War, refugees and displaced persons from Germany's eastern territories brought an increase in population within just a few months of around 18,000 people so that the total number in December 1945 was 53,000. In 2003 the 70,000 level was exceeded for the first time.
The town of L�neburg, its eponymous district and the neighbouring district of Harburg belong to the few regions in Germany that have experienced such a massive growth. The reasons for this include the growth of areas around the Hamburg Metropolitan Region and the
