Ober Kostenz

Ober Kostenz is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirchberg, whose seat is in the like-named town.

Geography

Location

The municipality, a rural residential community, lies in the Kyrbach valley in the central Hunsrück, roughly 4 km northwest of Kirchberg and 6 km northeast of Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. The municipal area measures 5.84 km², of which 2.06 km² is wooded.

History

As in Nieder Kostenz, there was an early Roman settlement. A grave field from the 1st century on what is now Kreisstraße (District Road) 10 to the Hunsrückhöhenstraße (“Hunsrück Heights Road”, a scenic road across the Hunsrück built originally as a military road on Hermann Göring’s orders) was unearthed in 1939 and 1949. In 1220, Ober Kostenz had its first documentary mention in one of St. Maximin’s Abbey’s directories of holdings. Between 1286 and 1333, a local noble family who held a fief in Ober Kostenz from the Counts of Sponheim is witnessed. Later, the Elector of the Palatinate was the landholder. The village church was from 1689 to 1896 a simultaneous church. Today’s Evangelical church comes from 1745, while the tower is likely mediaeval. Beginning in 1794, Ober Kostenz lay under French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1993, Ober Kostenz was honoured as the “Prettiest Municipality in the Regierungsbezirk of Koblenz.