Magnetic and crystallographic properties of the mineral langite Cu 4 (OH) 6 SO 2 4 · H 2 O are reported. Thermodynamic measurements combined with a microscopic analysis, based on density-functional bandstructure calculations, identify a quasi-two-dimensional (2D), partially frustrated spin-1/2 lattice resulting in the low Néel temperature of T 5.7 N K. This spin lattice splits into two parts with predominant ferro-and antiferromagnetic (AFM) exchange couplings, respectively. The former, ferromagnetic (FM) part is prone to the long-range magnetic order and saturates around 12 T, where the magnetization reaches 0.5 B m /Cu. The latter, AFM part features a spin-ladder geometry and should evade long-range magnetic order. This representation is corroborated by the peculiar temperature dependence of the specific heat in the magnetically ordered state. We argue that this separation into ferro-and antiferromagnetic sublattices is generic for quantum magnets in Cu 2+ oxides that combine different flavors of structural chains built of CuO 4 units. To start from reliable structural data, the crystal structure of langite in the 100-280 K temperature range has been determined by single-crystal x-ray diffraction, and the hydrogen positions were refined computationally.chains develop incommensurate spin correlations and helical magnetic order [8,9], although few instances of FM intrachain spin order are known as well [10,11]. The helical spin arrangement observed in simple binary compounds CuCl 2 [12] and CuBr 2 [13] and in more complex materials like linarite PbCu(OH) 2 SO 4 [14], all being frustrated J J 1 2 spin chains, may trigger electric polarization induced by the magnetic order, thus leading to multiferroic behavior [15-18]. Additionally, small interactions beyond the isotropic Heisenberg model lead to an intricate magnetic phase diagram, including multipolar (three-magnon) phases, which has been studied recently [19]. However, the complex interplay of frustration and anisotropy needs further investigations on different systems as, e.g., LiCuVO 4 [20-23]. One may naturally ask what happens when two types of spin chains, those with edge-and corner-sharing geometries, are placed next to each other within one material. Spin systems comprising several magnetic OPEN ACCESS RECEIVED =. A more detailed description of the procedure can be found, e.g., in [31,54]. Alternatively, strong electron correlations are added on top of LDA by the LSDA+U method in a mean-field way and are thus included in the self-consistent procedure. This allows for calculating total exchange constants J J J ij ij ij FM AFM ( ) m = J J J 81