Konken

Konken 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. The municipality lies in the highlands in the Western Palatinate. With 833 inhabitants, Konken is, after Kusel and Pfeffelbach, the third biggest municipality in the Verbandsgemeinde. The long village of Konken lies roughly 330 m above sea level in a broad, flat-bottomed, seashell-shaped dale that opens towards the east and through which flows the Konker Bach in that same direction. The district seat of Kusel lies to the northeast. In the south and east the dale abuts a vista of four separate hills, known as the Hettersberg, the Rundwieshübel (404 m), the Harzberg or Harzhöhe (412 m) and the Konker Wart or Konker Warte (414 m). To the north, the other side of the dale is formed by a ridge coming from the west, on whose south slope most of the village stands. This climbs rather steeply up to an elevation of roughly 350 m above sea level. In the village’s east, where the ridge flattens out, the Konker Bach flows round in a broad bow into which the Weiherbach, coming from the south, empties within the village itself. Right near the church is found the core of the village. On the village’s north side, the Konker Bach empties into the eastward-flowing Albessbach at the Hasenmühle (“Hare’s Mill”), which stands within Konken’s municipal limits. To the village’s north runs Autobahn A 62 (Kaiserslautern–Trier) with its Kusel interchange, which lies partly within Konken’s municipal limits. The major woodlands spread out to the village’s east and in the far west. The municipal area measures 704 ha, of which 10 ha is wooded. Konken borders in the north on the municipality of Ehweiler, in the east on the municipality of Schellweiler, in the southeast on the municipality of Hüffler, in the south on the municipalities of Wahnwegen and Herschweiler-Pettersheim, in the southwest on the municipality of Langenbach and in the northwest on the municipality of Albessen.