The Ellerspring, at , is the highest point of the

Soonwald The Soonwald () is a forested, low mountain region, up to , which forms part of the Hunsrück mountains in the German Central Uplands. It lies within the counties of Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis and Landkreis Bad Kreuznach, Bad Kreuznach in the state of ...

, a part of the

Hunsrück The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced mountain range, upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle (river), Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued ...

mountains in the German

Central Uplands The Central UplandsDickinson (1964), p.18 ff. (N.B. In German die ''Mittelgebirge'' (plural) refers to the Central Uplands; das ''Mittelgebirge'' refers to a low mountain range or upland region (''Mittel'' = "medium" and ''-gebirge'' = "range").) ...

. It is situated near Winterbach in the county of

Bad Kreuznach Bad Kreuznach () is a town in the Bad Kreuznach (district), Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a spa town, known for its medieval bridge dating from around 1300, the Alte Nahebrücke (Bad Kreuznach), Alte Nahebrücke, ...

in the state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Geography

Location

The Ellerspring lies in the northwest of the county of Bad Kreuznach roughly in the centre of the Soonwald-Nahe Nature Park. It rises within the parish of Winterbach, whose village church stands some 4.6 km south-southeast of the summit. About 1 km to the northwest of the summit in the valley of the Gräfenbach, which initially flows southwest, and that of the Lametbach, which begins by heading northeast, is the boundary with the county of

Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis is a district () in the middle of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The neighbouring districts are (from north clockwise) Mayen-Koblenz, Rhein-Lahn, Mainz-Bingen, Bad Kreuznach, Birkenfeld, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Cochem-Zell. His ...

, in which are located the villages of

Argenthal Argenthal 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'' Simmern ...

(to the north), Riesweiler and Tiefenbach (to the northwest) and Sargenroth and Mengerschied (to the west). Not far from the mountain, in the county of Bad Kreuznach, lie the villages of

Spabrücken Spabrücken is a municipality in the district of Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate, in western Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North S ...

and Münchwald (to the east), Gebroth (to the southeast) and Winterbach and Ippenschied (to the south-southeast). About 2 km (

as the crow flies The expression ''as the crow flies'' is an idiom for the most direct path between two points. Etymology The meaning of the expression is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in the Charles Dickens novel ''Oliver Twist'' (1838): ...

) south-southwest of the summit at a height of about 529 m rises the Nahe tributary of Ellerbach, after which the mountain is named. Roughly northeast of the summit is the ''Ödesborner Höhe'' (641.1 m) and, beyond that, the ''Hölzenkopf'' (604.8 m). Forming a spur to the south-southeastern is the ''Odstein'' (511.0 m) and, to the east, the ''Steineberg'' (563.9 m).

Natural regions

The Ellerspring belongs to the

natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora and ...

al major unit group of

(No. 24), in the major unit of

(240) and the sub-unit of Großer Soon (240.1) to the eponymous natural region of ''Großer Soon'' (240.11).

References

External links

* Information about th
''Ellerspring''
(private website) {{German Central Uplands Mountains under 1000 metres Mountains and hills of the Hunsrück Bad Kreuznach (district)