Ore Mountain Mining Region recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site - for which it has been nominated - it should help to preserve it for future generations as a "developing cultural landscape". From the first discovery of silver ore in 1168 in Christiansdorf in the territory of the present-day borough of Freiberg, which is part of the Freiberg Mining Field, mining was carried out uninterruptedly in the Ore Mountains until 1990. Amongst the raw materials mined over the course of centuries were ores of the metals silver, tin, zinc, cobalt, nickel, copper and lead; but anthracite and uranium were also extracted into the
Ore Mountains last silver mines closed and the company was disbanded. Mining in the Ore Mountains was given new life during the First and Second World Wars in order to supply raw materials. The Third Reich also saw the resumption of silver mining. Afterwards the people returned to the manufacture of wooden products and toys, especially in the Eastern Ore Mountains. The clock industry is centred on Glashütte. In the Western Ore Mountains, economic alternatives were offered by the engineering and textile industries. In 1789 the chemical element uranium was discovered in St. Joachimsthal; then in pitchblende from the same area, radium