Görwihl is a municipality in the district of Waldshut in

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

History

The name is derived from the ancient

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for

spear A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...

, due to the spearhead shape of the area at the time. Görwihl was established in 1193, and was first recorded as ''Gerswillare''. Like many places in the region, Görwihl belonged to the county Hauenstein within

Further Austria Further Austria, Outer Austria or Anterior Austria (; , formerly ''die Vorlande'' (pl.)) was the collective name for the early (and later) possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-western Germany, includin ...

. It became the centre of legal activity for the region and played a role in the peasants' uprising. In 1806, Görwihl became part of the newly created

Grand Duchy of Baden The Grand Duchy of Baden () was a German polity on the east bank of the Rhine. It originally existed as a sovereign state from 1806 to 1871 and later as part of the German Empire until 1918. The duchy's 12th-century origins were as a Margravia ...

. The community in its present scale was developed in the context of Baden-Wurttemberg regional reform. Rotzingen joined the municipality of Görwihl in 1971 and Hartschwand in 1972, with the other districts following in 1975.

Geography

Görwihl is within the Hotzenwald region, and lies in the southernmost part of the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

, at the edge of the River Alb, a tributary of the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

. The landscape of the region is characterized by high plateaus of various sizes, the stepped terraces descending toward the south. About 60% of the area within the town boundary consists of

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

. The community is bordered to the north by Ibach, on the east by Albbruck, in the south by the city of Laufenburg and on the west by Rickenbach and

Herrischried Herrischried is a municipality in the district of Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. References Waldshut (district) Hotzenwald {{Waldshut-geo-stub ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorwihl Waldshut (district) Hotzenwald