Elz, Hesse

Elz is a community in Limburg-Weilburg district in western Hesse, Germany, on the boundary with Rhineland-Palatinate.

Geography

Location

Elz lies at an elevation of 110 to 291 m north of the Lahn in the Limburg Basin (Limburger Becken) with the municipal area reaching into the heights on its western edge and thereby into the area of the Lower Westerwald (Elzer Wald). From north to south the municipal area is crossed by the flat-bottomed Elbbach valley, whose resident stream rises in the High Westerwald and flows south from Elz, emptying into the Lahn.

Geology

The Elbbach’s broad lower reaches follow a tectonically created fault (Elzer Graben) which stretches northwards into the community of Dornburg. The Devonian bedrock here is, especially west of the Elbbach, overlain with thick sedimentary fill from the Tertiary (clays, sands, gravels) of which especially the quartz sand has afforded the region some economic importance. Overlying these in turn are layers of Ice Age loess deposits, which have laid the basis for fruitful agriculture.

Hesse

Hesse /ˈhɛs/ or Hessia (German: Hessen [ˈhɛsn̩], Hessian dialect: Hesse [ˈhɛzə]) is a federal state (Land) of the Federal Republic of Germany, with just over six million inhabitants. The state capital is Wiesbaden; the largest city is Frankfurt am Main. Until the formation of the German Reich in 1871, Hesse was an independent country ruled by a Grand Duke (Grand Duchy of Hesse). Due to divisions after World War II, the modern federal state does not cover the entire cultural region of Hesse which includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse (Rheinhessen) in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The English name "Hesse" originates in the Hessian dialects. The variant "Hessia" comes from the medieval Latin Hassia. The German term Hessen is used by the European Commission because their policy is to leave regional names untranslated (paragraphs 1.31 & 1.35). The term "Hesse" ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first century B.C. An inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian (German: Hesse (masculine) or Hessin (feminine)). The synthetic element hassium, number 108 on the periodic table, is named after the state of Hesse.

Hesse (disambiguation)

Hesse is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.

Hesse may also refer to:

Sports

See also

Hesse (surname)

Hesse is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:

See also