Butjadingen is a peninsula and a Gemeinde (municipality) at the same time, situated at the GermanNorth Sea coast. It is limited by the Jade river to the west and southwest and by the Weser river to the east. It makes the northern part of the Landkreis (district) Wesermarsch and is rather lowly populated. Next to the Gemeinde Butjadingen there is the town of Nordenham which geographically is part of the peninsula Butjadingen as well.
The peninsula was formed during the Middle Ages when huge floods created nowaday's North Sea coast lines. After a desastrous flood in 1362 (the so called Second Marcellus Flood as it took place around the day of Marcelli Pontificis) Butjadingen temporarily became an island.
Its name is derived from Low German "buten" (=outside) and "Jade". So it means something like 'the lands on the other side of the Jade river'.
In front of the peninsula there is a wadden sea which stretches between the Jade's and the Weser's mouths about 23 kilometres to the northwest beyond the Mellum island. It is part of the Nationalpark Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer (Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park), one of three German Wadden Sea National Parks.
The municipality of Butjadingen has about 6600 citizens (in 2003). Agriculture and tourism are most important economically. The main tourist sites are the villages of Tossens, Burhave and Eckwarden. There are ferrys across the Weser from Nordenham to Bremerhaven and (only during summer) across the Jade from Eckwarderhörne to Wilhelmshaven. In Nordenham there is a train station with several connections per day to Bremen.
Here the largest town of the district is located: Nordenham, lying opposite to Bremerhaven at the Weser mouth.
The district was created in 1933 by merging the Ämter Butjadingen, Brake and Elsfleth, and parts of the Ämter Delmenhorst and Varel.
Since February 1991 the district has a partnership with the german districts Borken (North Rhine-Westphalia) and Ludwigslust (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania).
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