The Ore Mountain Basin or Erzgebirge Basin is a a natural region

Natural region

A Natural region is one which is distinguished by its natural features of geography and usually more important, geology. The natural ecology of the region is likely to be significant but one of these factors tends to influence the others....

 in the German federal state of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, that is part of the Saxon Lowland

Saxon Lowland

The Saxon Lowland or Saxon Löss Fields refer to a natural region that lies mainly within the state of Saxony in central Germany. In addition, small areas of this region extend to the northwest and west into Saxony-Anhalt , to the southeast into Thuringia and to the northeast into Brandenburg...

. To the north it borders on the Mulde Loess Hills and to the south on several natural regions in the Saxon Highlands and Uplands

Saxon Highlands and Uplands

The Saxon Highlands and Uplands refer to a natural region mainly in the south of Saxony with small elements also in southeast Thuringia and northeast Bavaria...

.

The basin is a structural depression running from northeast to southwest in the Ore Mountain peneplain

Peneplain

A peneplain is a low-relief plain representing the final stage of fluvial erosion during times of extended tectonic stability. The existence of peneplains, and peneplanation as a geomorphological process, is not without controversy, due to a lack of contemporary examples and uncertainty in...

 that is filled with Devonian and Carboniferous sediments. The main communications from the Ore Mountains

Ore Mountains

The Ore Mountains in Central Europe have formed a natural border between Saxony and Bohemia for many centuries. Today, the border between Germany and the Czech Republic runs just north of the main crest of the mountain range...

 follow the valleys downhill and are collected by a major routeway to the north that follows this furrow and passes through the cities of Zwickau

Zwickau

Zwickau in Germany, former seat of the government of the south-western region of the Free State of Saxony, belongs to an industrial and economical core region. Nowadays it is the capital city of the district of Zwickau...

 and Chemnitz

Chemnitz

Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...

.

According to current categorisation the Upper Pleißeland (Obere Pleißeland), immediately to the east of the towns of Werdau

Werdau

Werdau is a town in Germany, part of the Landkreis Zwickau in the administrative region of Chemnitz, the Free State of Saxony. It is situated on the river Pleiße, 8 km from Zwickau....

 and Crimmitschau

Crimmitschau

Crimmitschau is a town in the district of Zwickau in the Free State of Saxony.-Geography:Crimmitschau lies on the River Pleiße in the northern foothills of the Erzgebirge.-Neighboring municipalities:...

, is also counted as part of the basin.

The Ore Mountain Basin is a important centre of population in Saxony and a historically important industrial region, not least because of the Zwickau Field which contained most of East Germany's very minor reserves of coal and included the biggest
former hard coal mining region in Saxony.