Eßweiler

Eßweiler (ˈɛsvaɪlɐ, with a short E; also Essweiler) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein. The municipality lies roughly 25 km north of Kaiserslautern, 15 km east of Kusel and 4 km west of Wolfstein at the foot of the Königsberg, a mountain in the North Palatine Uplands. Eßweiler sits at an elevation of 260 to 280 m above sea level, and has also given the dale in which it lies its name, the Eßweiler Tal. In the village itself, the two streams, the Breitenbach and the Jettenbach, flow together to form the Talbach, which is fed by the Steinbach about 100 m beyond the municipal limit, thereafter flowing down to Offenbach-Hundheim, where it empties into the Glan. Found around Eßweiler are some of the district's highest mountains: the Königsberg (568 m), the Selberg (546 m), the Potschberg (498 m), the Bornberg (520 m) and the Herrmannsberg (536 m). Eßweiler has 431 inhabitants and an area of 8.1 km2. Land under agricultural use amounts to 39.5%, while 13.9% is used for residential and transport purposes. Another 46.1% of the municipal area is wooded, and 0.5% is open water. Eßweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Oberweiler im Tal, in the northeast on the municipality of Aschbach, in the east on the municipality of Rutsweiler an der Lauter, in the southeast on the municipality of Rothselberg, in the south on the municipality of Jettenbach, in the southwest on the municipality of Bosenbach, in the west on the municipality of Elzweiler and in the northwest on the municipality of Horschbach. Eßweiler also meets the town of Wolfstein at a single point in the northeast. Eßweiler has only one outlying centre, called the Schneeweiderhof (Hof means “estate” in German, and the name takes the definite article), lying some 3 km from the village at an elevation of about 500 m above sea level on the Bornberg.