Location

Edertal lies roughly 30 km in a straight line southwest of Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

. It is on the north and northwest edges of the Kellerwald

Kellerwald

The Kellerwald is a low mountain range reaching heights of up to 675 m in the western part of northern Hesse, Germany.Its assets include Germany's largest contiguous beech woodland and it contains Hesse's only national park, the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park.- Geography :The Kellerwald lies in...

 range and stretches to the south shore of the Edersee

Edersee

The Edersee Dam is a hydroelectric dam constructed between 1908 to 1914 across the Eder river, near the small town of Waldeck in northern Hesse, Germany, it lies at the northern edge of the Kellerwald...

 and south and southwest of its dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

. It lies at the eastern edge of the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park, a small part of which is inside municipal limits.

The community of Edertal is crossed by the river Eder

Eder

The Eder is a 177 km long river in Germany, and a tributary of the Fulda River. It was first mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus as the Adrana in the territory of the Chatti....

, the biggest body of flowing water in the community, from northwest to southeast. Into this empties the Wesebach at the constituent community of Giflitz. The Affolderner See, which is found within municipal limits, is another reservoir used for generating electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and for recreation. On the whole, hydroelectric use at the Edersee is also well developed.

Neighbouring communities

Edertal borders in the north on the town of Waldeck

Waldeck, Hesse

Waldeck is a small town in Waldeck-Frankenberg district in northwestern Hesse, Germany.-Location:Waldeck lies on the Edersee, a man-made lake...

, in the east on the towns of Naumburg

Naumburg, Hesse

Naumburg is a town in the district of Kassel, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km southwest of Kassel on the German Framework Road.-External links:*...

 (Kassel

Kassel (district)

Kassel is a Kreis in the north of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Northeim, Göttingen, Werra-Meißner, Schwalm-Eder, Waldeck-Frankenberg, Höxter...

 district) and Fritzlar

Fritzlar

Fritzlar is a small German town in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse, north of Frankfurt, with a storied history. It can reasonably be argued that the town is the site where the Christianization of northern Germany began and the birthplace of the German empire as a political entity.The...

 (Schwalm-Eder-Kreis

Schwalm-Eder-Kreis

Schwalm-Eder is a Kreis in the north of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Kassel, Werra-Meißner, Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Vogelsbergkreis, Marburg-Biedenkopf, Waldeck-Frankenberg.-History:...

), in the south on the town of Bad Wildungen

Bad Wildungen

Bad Wildungen is a state-run spa and a small town in Waldeck-Frankenberg district in Hesse, Germany. It is located on the German Framework Road.-Geography:-Location:...

, and in the west on the town of Frankenau

Frankenau

-Location:Frankenau lies in the Kellerwald range southwest of the Talgang . It is found on the southern edge of the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park on the upper reaches of the Lorfebach, a tributary to the Eder...

 and the community of Vöhl

Vöhl

Vöhl is a community in Waldeck-Frankenberg in Hesse, Germany not far southwest of Kassel.-Location:Vöhl lies in the northern part of the Kellerwald-Edersee Nature Park on the Edersee, a man-made lake.-Neighbouring communities:...

 (all three in Waldeck-Frankenberg).

Constituent communities

In Giflitz is the community's administrative seat. With the neighbouring centre of Bergheim to the northeast, it forms the heart of the community and, accordingly, a lower centre in the Regional Plan (in terms of Walter Christaller

Walter Christaller

Walter Christaller , was a German geographer whose principal contribution to the discipline is Central Place Theory, first published in 1933...

's Central Place Theory

Central Place Theory

Central place theory is a geographical theory that seeks to explain the number, size and location of human settlements in an urban system. The theory was created by the German geographer Walter Christaller, who asserted that settlements simply functioned as 'central places' providing services to...

).

The community of Edertal consists of the following centres:

Affoldern Anraff Bergheim Böhne Bringhausen

Buhlen Gellershausen Giflitz Hemfurth-Edersee

Bringhausen was one of three villages that originally stood where the Edersee is now. It was relocated to higher ground early in the 20th century.

Geology

The area belongs to the foothills of the Rhenish Slate Mountains. Outcrops here are mainly shale

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...

 and greywacke

Greywacke

Greywacke or Graywacke is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lithic fragments set in a compact, clay-fine matrix. It is a texturally immature sedimentary rock generally found...

.

Municipal council

Edertal's council is made up of 17 councillors, with seats apportioned thus, in accordance with municipal elections held on 26 March 2006:

SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...	14 seats
CDU Christian Democratic Union (Germany) The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...	9 seats
FWG	5 seats
FDP Free Democratic Party (Germany) The Free Democratic Party , abbreviated to FDP, is a centre-right classical liberal political party in Germany. It is led by Philipp Rösler and currently serves as the junior coalition partner to the Union in the German federal government...	3 seats

Note: FWG is a citizens' coalition.