Nistertal
Encyclopedia
Nistertal is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde
– in the Westerwaldkreis
in Rhineland-Palatinate
, Germany
.
between Limburg
and Siegen
. Nistertal belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Marienberg
, a kind of collective municipality. Its seat is in the like-named town
.
al and religious one, too.
in a municipal election on 13 June 2004.
in the community’s arms
stand for the two constituent communities of Büdingen and Erbach. The hexagon and the miner’s hammer
s symbolize the rich basalt
deposits and their exploitation as the community’s characteristic industry and livelihood. The alder
twig refers to the Ortsteil name Erbach (from Erlenbach – Erle being German
for “alder”). The wavy parting per pale represents the community’s location on the Nister, with Büdingen on the left and Erbach on the right. The bridge that fills out the shield’s lower portion is a symbol of the Erbach Bridge as well as the roadbridge between the two constituent communities. The tinctures
gold and blue were those borne by the Duchy of Nassau. They refer to the community’s centuries-long territorial allegiance to that state.
bridge. With a length of some 300 m and a height of almost 40 m, at the time still without steel
armouring, it was held to be a technological wonder. After the Erbach-Bad Marienberg (Westerwald)-Fehl-Ritzhausen
railway line was shut down in 1971, the bridge was preserved as a technological building monument.
Also worthy of mention is the Wasserbrücke (“Waterbridge”). At this bridge, water is borne across the tracks of the Nistertal-Bad Marienberg railway line.
414, leading from Driedorf
-Hohenroth to Hachenburg
. The nearest Autobahn interchanges
are Montabaur
on the A 3 (Cologne
–Frankfurt), some 25 km away, and Haiger
/Burbach on the A 45
(Dortmund
–Hanau
), some 27 km away. Nistertal lies on the Oberwesterwaldbahn (railway) to Limburg and Au (Sieg). From there, the cities of Cologne
, Koblenz
, Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden
may be reached directly. The nearest InterCityExpress
stop is the railway station at Montabaur on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line.
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...
– in the Westerwaldkreis
Westerwaldkreis
The Westerwaldkreis is a district in the east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...
in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Location
The community lies in the WesterwaldWesterwald
The Westerwald is a low mountain range on the right bank of the River Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhine Massif...
between Limburg
Limburg an der Lahn
Limburg an der Lahn is the district seat of Limburg-Weilburg in Hesse, Germany.-Location:Limburg lies in western Hesse between the Taunus and the Westerwald on the river Lahn....
and Siegen
Siegen
Siegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region...
. Nistertal belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Marienberg
Bad Marienberg (Verbandsgemeinde)
Bad Marienberg is a Verbandsgemeinde in the district Westerwaldkreis, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The seat of the Verbandsgemeinde is in Bad Marienberg....
, a kind of collective municipality. Its seat is in the like-named town
Bad Marienberg
Bad Marienberg is a town in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and also the seat of the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality.- Geography :...
.
History
In 1274, Büdingen had its first documentary mention. Erbach’s first documentary mention followed in 1353.Amalgamations
The community of Nistertal came into being in 1969 in the course of administrative reform through the merger of the communities of Büdingen and Erbach. For centuries before this, the Große Nister, flowing between the two places, marked not only a political boundary, but a dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
al and religious one, too.
Community council
The council is made up of 16 council members drawn from two voting communities (Wählergemeinschaften) who were elected in a majority votePlurality voting system
The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies...
in a municipal election on 13 June 2004.
Coat of arms
The two uppermost chargesCharge (heraldry)
In heraldry, a charge is any emblem or device occupying the field of an escutcheon . This may be a geometric design or a symbolic representation of a person, animal, plant, object or other device...
in the community’s arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
stand for the two constituent communities of Büdingen and Erbach. The hexagon and the miner’s hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
s symbolize the rich basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
deposits and their exploitation as the community’s characteristic industry and livelihood. The alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
twig refers to the Ortsteil name Erbach (from Erlenbach – Erle being German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
for “alder”). The wavy parting per pale represents the community’s location on the Nister, with Büdingen on the left and Erbach on the right. The bridge that fills out the shield’s lower portion is a symbol of the Erbach Bridge as well as the roadbridge between the two constituent communities. The tinctures
Tincture (heraldry)
In heraldry, tinctures are the colours used to emblazon a coat of arms. These can be divided into several categories including light tinctures called metals, dark tinctures called colours, nonstandard colours called stains, furs, and "proper". A charge tinctured proper is coloured as it would be...
gold and blue were those borne by the Duchy of Nassau. They refer to the community’s centuries-long territorial allegiance to that state.
Buildings
The railway bridge near Erbach across the river Nister was at the time of its completion in 1911 Germany’s biggest concreteConcrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
bridge. With a length of some 300 m and a height of almost 40 m, at the time still without steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
armouring, it was held to be a technological wonder. After the Erbach-Bad Marienberg (Westerwald)-Fehl-Ritzhausen
Fehl-Ritzhausen
Fehl-Ritzhausen is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde – in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.-Location:...
railway line was shut down in 1971, the bridge was preserved as a technological building monument.
Also worthy of mention is the Wasserbrücke (“Waterbridge”). At this bridge, water is borne across the tracks of the Nistertal-Bad Marienberg railway line.
Transport
North of the community runs BundesstraßeBundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
414, leading from Driedorf
Driedorf
-Location:Driedorf lies from 416 to 642 m above sea level on a tableland in the high Westerwald.-Mademühlen:Mademühlen has about 1000 inhabitants and lies in the "Hessischer Westerwald" protected area and in the European protected area network Natura 2000...
-Hohenroth to Hachenburg
Hachenburg
-Geography:The town lies in the Westerwald between Koblenz and Siegen, roughly 10 km west of Bad Marienberg on the river Nister. Hachenburg is the administrative seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Hachenburg, a kind of collective municipality .-The castle and the town:The castle , former seat of...
. The nearest Autobahn interchanges
Interchange (road)
In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...
are Montabaur
Montabaur
Montabaur is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the Verbandsgemeinde of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to which 24 other communities belong...
on the A 3 (Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
–Frankfurt), some 25 km away, and Haiger
Haiger
Haiger is a country town in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany. The nearest city is Siegen, about 25 km north of Haiger.-Location:Haiger lies about 5 km west of Dillenburg, and 20 km southeast of Siegen on the eastern edge of the Westerwald range, near where the three states of...
/Burbach on the A 45
Bundesautobahn 45
is an autobahn in Germany, connecting Dortmund in the west with Aschaffenburg in the southwest. It is colloquially known by its byname Sauerlandlinie, which derives from the Sauerland, the landscape which said autobahn is running through between the cities of Hagen and Siegen. Many people think of...
(Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
–Hanau
Hanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
), some 27 km away. Nistertal lies on the Oberwesterwaldbahn (railway) to Limburg and Au (Sieg). From there, the cities of Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
, Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
may be reached directly. The nearest InterCityExpress
InterCityExpress
The Intercity-Express or ICE is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany and neighbouring countries. It is the highest service category offered by DB Fernverkehr and is the flagship of Deutsche Bahn...
stop is the railway station at Montabaur on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line.