The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past the Rhine and by the Eifel past the Moselle. To the south of the Nahe is a lower, hilly country forming the near bulk of the Palatinate region and all of the, smaller, Saarland. At its north-east corner is Koblenz.
As the Hunsrück proceeds east it acquires north-south width and three notable gaps in its southern ridges. In this zone are multi-branch headwaters including the Simmerbach ending at Simmertal on the southern edge. This interior is therefore rarely higher than above sea level. Peaks and escarpments are principally: the (Black Forest) Hochwald, the Idar Forest, the Soonwald, and the Bingen Forest. The highest mountain is the Erbeskopf (816 m; 2,677 ft), towards the region's south-west.
Notable towns are Simmern, Kirchberg, and Idar-Oberstein, Kastellaun, and Morbach. Frankfurt-Hahn Airport is at the centre of the upland, equidistant between Mainz, Trier and Koblenz, co-named after the village of Hahn.
Slate is still mined in the mountains. Since 2010, the region has become one of Germany's major onshore wind power regions. Large wind farms are near Ellern and Kirchberg. Nature-based tourism is widespread. In 2015, a new national park was inaugurated. The pedestrian Geierlay suspension bridge opened in the same year. The climate sees mists that rise most mornings. More rain than the German average is caused by a combination of an oceanic influence and relief precipitation.
Culturally, the region is best known for its Hunsrückisch dialect and through depictions in the Heimat film series. The region saw great emigration in the mid-19th century, particularly to Brazil.
Geography
Location The heart of the Hunsrück is formed by the Hunsrück Plateau and the Simmern Bowl. In the northwest the Hunsrück is bounded by the Moselle river and in the east by the Rhine. Its northeasternmost tip is thus formed by the Deutsches Eck. The Nahe – on the edge of the Bingen Forest, the Soonwald and the Lützelsoon – borders the mountains to the south. The Lower Naheland is not part of the Hunsrück, but belongs to the Upper Rhine Plain. The Idar Forest, the Hochwald and the Wildenburger Kopf adjoin the Hunsrück to the southwest. Here the Upper Nahe Hills rise in the shadow of the Hunsrück. The Osburger Hochwald, Schwarzwälder Hochwald and the rivers Saar and Ruwer form the western perimeter. Its southern continuation is formed by the Westrich and the North Palatine Uplands.
The low mountain range is around 100 km long (SW to NE) and an average of 25 to 30 km wide (NW to SE). Its perimeter is a heavily incised peneplain with elongated ridges in the south (the Hochwald, Idar Forest, Soonwald and Bingen Forest).Lexikon-Institut Bertelsmann: Das moderne Lexikon in zwanzig Bänden, Vol. 8 (1972) The range, which begins at the Saar in the southwest and, with breaks, reaches as far as the Rhine, climbs to its highest point in the Hochwald at the Erbeskopf (816.32 m), the highest peak in the Hunsrück and in the Rhenish Massif west of the Rhine. It continues to the NE as the Idar Forest with its highest peaks, An den zwei Steinen (766.2 m) and the Idarkopf (745.7 m). Its northeasternmost part is formed by the Soonwald (highest point: the Ellerspring, 656.8 m), the Lützelsoon (Womrather Höhe, 599.1 m) and the Bingen Forest (Kandrich, 638.6 m). All these ranges form an almost unbroken belt of forest."Hunsrück" article; in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Vol. 9. Leipzig, 1907. – To the east of the Rhine the crest of the Hunsrück is continued by the Taunus.
Geomorphologically the Hunsrück bears great similarities to the Eifel, the Taunus and the Westerwald, which are also part of the Rhenish Massif.
The Hunsrück hill road runs from west to east from Saarburg to Koblenz. A Roman military road, the so-called Via Ausonia also once ran through the mountains in an east-west direction and linked Trier with Bingen.
In many primary schools in the Hunsrück children are taught the boundaries of the Hunsrück using the following rhyme: "Mosel, Nahe, Saar und Rhein schließen unsern Hunsrück ein." ("Moselle, Nahe, Saar and Rhine enclose our Hunsrück")
Mountains and hills
The following table lists the highest mountains and hills of the Hunsrück by sub-range (Osburger and Schwarzwälder Hochwald, Idar Forest, Haardt Forest, Soonwald, Bingen Forest and Lützelsoon) and height in metres above sea level (NN):
Name Height (metres) Location (Natural region) County Remarks Erbeskopf 816.32 Schwarzwälder Hochwald Bernkastel-Wittlich Highest mountain in the Hunsrück, viewing tower An den zwei Steinen 766.2 Idar Forest Bernkastel-Wittlich, Birkenfeld Rösterkopf 708.1 Osburger Hochwald Trier-Saarburg Rösterkopf transmission tower Haardtkopf 658.0 Haardt Forest Bernkastel-Wittlich Haardtkopf Transmitter Ellerspring 657.5 Soonwald Bad Kreuznach Ellerspring Transmission Tower Kandrich 638.6 Bingen Forest Bad Kreuznach Transmitter Womrather Höhe 599.1 Lützelsoon Bad Kreuznach, Rhein-Hunsrück
Flora and fauna Despite, in places, intensive agricultural or timber use, the Hunsrück remains a landscape with a biodiversity, because many elements of the landscape can only be extensively utilised or even not used at all.
Flora The plant world of the Hunsrück is rich and varied. In the Soonwald there are over 850 species of ferns and flowers. The traditional forest monocultures are increasingly giving way, especially as a result of windthrow damage, to mixed woods, supporting a greater variety of plant species.
Fauna Although the Hunsrück is not classified as a bird reserve, it is home to a wide variety of bird species: woodpeckers, birds of prey and song birds may be seen at all times of the year. Even the rare and shy black stork nests in the forests. The Hunsrück is rich in mammals; red deer, roe deer and wild boar are intensively hunted. Larger predators include a few examples of European wildcat or even the Eurasian lynx. Red fox, European badgers and pine martens are more commonly encountered.
The best known mammal in the Hunsrück has become the barbastelle. It achieved notoriety when the presence of this rare species of bat delayed construction on the runway extension at Hahn Airport.Airport: Mopsfledermäuse machen Ärger; Focus Online, 2 June 2005; retrieved 19 May 2014
In the numerous wet areas, amphibians, like the fire salamander, and insects have found ideal habitats. Meanwhile, in areas covered by dry grassland or scree, numerous reptiles like the slowworm and smooth snake have found a home. The viper does not occur in the Hunsrück.
History
Prehistory Finds such as stone axes indicate that the Hunsrück has been settled since the New Stone Age. Older discoveries, which prove that the area was either settled or crossed during the Old Stone Age, are rare. Middle Palaeolithic (ca. 200,000–400,000 B.C.) surface finds from Weiler bei Bingen are an exception. By contrast the Gravettian (ca. 30,000–20,000 B.C.) sites in Heddesheim (in the municipality of Guldental) and Brey (in the municipality of Rhens) are the first settlements in the area around the Hunsrück. Other significant sites include the rather more recent Old Stone Age site of NußbaumWolfgang Welker: Die Eiszeitjäger von Armsheim (Rheinhessen) und Nußbaum (Nahetal); in: Schriften des Arbeitskreises Landes- und Volkskunde, Band 6; Koblenz, 2007; ; pp. 1–13 near Bad Sobernheim and the encampment of Late Palaeolithic deer hunters in Boppard,Wolfgang Welker: Archäologische Fundmeldungen von ARRATA e. V. – Die Entdeckung des spätpaläolithischen Fundplatzes Boppard/Rhein; in: Abenteuer Archäologie, Issue 4, 2002; ; pp. 49–51 which was first discovered in 2001 by the ARRATA Archaeology Society. In 2014, Late Palaeolithic rock carvings similar to those from southern France and Spain were found in the Hunsrück. They were portraits of animals, especially horses, about 25,000 years old carved into a 1.2 m² slab of slate.Erste altsteinzeitliche Felskunst in Deutschland, Mitteilung des Ministeriums für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Weiterbildung und Kultur des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz.
The oldest witnesses from the New Stone Age are dated to no later than the Middle Neolithic, relics of the so-called Rössen culture (whose sites include Biebernheim and Reckershausen). The majority of finds, especially of stone axes date, however, to the Late Neolithic and belong to the Michelsberg culture. Up to 2007, numerous oval stone axes were discovered, especially in the Fore-Hunsrück (Morshausen, Beulich and Macken). Likewise, finds of flint arrowheads point to a Late Neolithic (inter alia at Bell) and very Late Neolithic (Hirzenach) settlement.Wolfgang Welker: Archäologische Fundmeldungen von ARRATA e. V. – Eine geflügelte Pfeilspitze; in: Abenteuer Archäologie, Issue 3, 2001; ; p. 64 Other finds from the Bronze Age prove that there was continual settlement (especially documented by graves and grave goods).
A greater process of settlement took place in the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt period) with the Laufeld culture and in the La Tène period (5th– 1st century B.C.) with the Hunsrück-Eifel culture, which has been linked with the Celts. Examples of this culture include the coach grave of Bell, the Waldalgesheim prince's grave, the circular rampart of Otzenhausen, the Pfalzfeld obelisk, the upland settlement of Altburg in the Hahnenbach valley and the numerous fields of tumuli. At that time, the Hunsrück was the tribal area of the Treveri.
Roman period Between about 50 BC and AD 400 the Romans opened up the Hunsrück by building a dense network of roads. The best known relic of this is the Via Ausonia. Numerous finds of Roman farms (Villa Rustica), settlements, like the vicus Belginum, and military structures point to an almost total settlement of the region by the Romans.
Frankish period The final years of the 4th century saw the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Franks conquered the Roman territories and began to divide them up. This was the start of the great western and central European empire of Francia. In the mid-8th century this was divided into gaus under Carolingian rule. The northern part of the present Hunsrück foreland belonged to the Trechirgau, the southern part to the Nahegau. The Trechirgau was managed by the so-called Bertholds, the Nahegau by the Emichones. The capital of the Trechirgau, Trigorium, was in Treis. cf. Josef Heinzelmann: Der Weg nach Trigorium …; in: Jahrbuch für westdeutsche Landesgeschichte 21 (1994), pp. 91–132
Middle Ages to French period The Hundesrucha is mentioned for the first time in a 1074 deed from Ravengiersburg Abbey.
In the Middle Ages, the Hunsrück was territorially fragmented between the counts Palatine of the Rhine, the archbishops of Trier, the counts of Sponheim and the successors of the Emichones (the Wildgraves, the Raugraves and the counts of Veldenz). There were also a number of smaller dominions. Due to the multitude of dominions, many castles and customs stations were built, mainly between 11th to mid 14th century, which still shape the landscape today.
In 1410 the Principality of Simmern emerged as a territory ruled by a side line of the counts Palatine. In the following years, Simmern became the most important residence of a noble family in the Hunsrück. Under Duke John II the town achieved supra-regional importance for a short time.
After the Thirty Years' War, Louis XIV of France made reunification demands on several principalities in the Palatinate, the Hunsrück and the Eifel. He had his troops invade and thus precipitated the Nine Years' War. In 1689 Kirchberg, Kastellaun, Simmern and the town and castle of Stromberg were set on fire. Then came the chaos of war, which led to the War of the Spanish Succession, which ended in 1713.