Birgel

Birgel is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Obere Kyll, whose seat is in the municipality of Jünkerath.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies in the Eifel on the upper Kyll, halfway between Trier and Cologne. It is linked to the outside world by Bundesstraße 421 and the Cologne-Trier railway (Lissendorf station).

Geology

The municipality belongs to the Kalkeifel (“Limestone Eifel”) and lies on the southern edge of the Dollendorf Limestone Basin (Dollendorfer Kalkmulde). The elevation ranges from about 400 m above sea level on the Kyll at Crumpsmühle to about 526 m above sea level at the Hirzberg (mountain).

Geologically, three formations characterize the municipality. The outliers of the Middle Devonian limestone basin in the north, the bunter in the middle and the east and the sediments of the Kyll in the west.

Arising from this are the great amounts of groundwater found here, which supply not only Birgel but also other municipalities in the Verbandsgemeinde of Obere Kyll with drinking water.