Hinzweiler

Hinzweiler (ˈhɪntsvaɪlɐ) 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 in the Eßweiler Tal (dale) northwest of the Königsberg (mountain) in the North Palatine Uplands at an elevation of some 200 m above sea level. Elevations on the right bank at the Königsberg reach above 500 m above sea level (Leienberg 524 m). On the left bank, they reach only a bit more than 300 m above sea level (Spenzelberg 305 m). The municipal area measures 532 ha, of which roughly 32 ha is settled and 200 ha is wooded. Hinzweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Nerzweiler, in the east on the municipality of Aschbach, in the south on the municipality of Oberweiler im Tal, in the west on the municipality of Horschbach and in the northwest on the municipality of Glanbrücken. Also belonging to Hinzweiler is the outlying homestead of Mühlbergerhof. Landesstraße 372 runs through the village of Hinzweiler from north to south, on the brook's right bank in the north of the village and on its left in the south. Nevertheless, the village cannot be considered a true linear village, for in the village centre, where the road crosses the brook, other built-up streets branch off the thoroughfare to the southeast and east. Indeed, it is also here that the older part of the built-up area is found. The church stands in the south of this old village centre. The great Königslandhalle with its civic centre dominates the view in the village centre's north. The sporting ground lies to the village's west on the Talbach's left bank, while the graveyard lies at the village's south end by the road to Horschbach. Going by the many archaeological finds from the broader area around Hinzweiler, it can be assumed that the immediate area was likewise settled in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and perhaps even as early as the New Stone Age.