Albessen

Albessen 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 of Kusel-Altenglan, whose seat is in Kusel. Albessen lies near Kusel in the Westrich – an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France – on the state boundary with the Saarland, at the foot of the lengthy mixed forest area known as the Albesser Hain, after the municipality (Hain means “grove” in German). The municipality has a mainly agricultural structure, and is the smallest municipality within the Verbandsgemeinde of Kusel. Albessen lies some 370 m above sea level in the broad, fertile hollow of the Albessbach, which rises in the municipality's west, flowing down eastwards to the Konker Bach. The elevations each side of the hollow reach up beyond 400 m in some places. The highest, in the cadastral area called Rothöll, reaches 479 m above sea level. The wooded area within the municipality stretches from the southwest to the northeast. To the village's east, the Autobahn A 62 (Kaiserslautern–Trier) cuts across the municipal area. The municipal area measures 443 ha, of which 118 ha is wooded. Albessen borders in the north on the municipality of Pfeffelbach, in the northeast on the municipality of Ehweiler, in the southeast on the municipality of Konken, in the southwest on the municipality of Selchenbach, in the west on the municipality of Herchweiler and in the northwest on the town of Freisen in the Saarland. Albessen also meets the municipality of Langenbach at a single point in the south. Konken is home to the local telephone exchange for area code 06384, and also to a kindergarten, a general store, a bakery, a butcher's shop and a plant nursery. According to the 1845 cadastral plan, the village then still had two thoroughfares running parallel to the brook on each of the north and south sides. In the time that followed, the built-up area spread to a cross-street, then to the northeast towards Ehweiler and to the south, up to about 370 m above sea level.