Nohen

Nohen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Birkenfeld district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Birkenfeld, whose seat is in the like-named town.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies at the mouth of the Röhmbach, where it empties into the Nahe.

Neighbouring municipalities

Nohen borders in the north on the municipality of Kronweiler, in the east on the municipality of Reichenbach, in the south on the municipality of Heimbach and in the west on the municipality of Rimsberg.

History

Nohen’s beginnings can be traced back to a time when the location was favourable to transportation because it lay on one of the few fords in the river Nahe’s upper valley. As an indication of how important Nohen was geographically in those early days, one need only observe that it was then the only place along the river Nahe that was named after the river (the names “Nohen” and “Nahe” have a common heritage). It was here that one of the oldest north-south trade roads crossed the Nahe. This Bronzestraße (“Bronze Road”) from the Glan by way of Nohen to the Moselle was expanded in Roman times into a crosslink between the Mainz-Trier and Mainz-Metz roads.