Grenzach-Wyhlen is a municipality of 15,000 people in the district of Lörrach 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 ...

. It sits on the right bank 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 ...

abutting the Swiss municipalities of Riehen and Bettingen in the Kanton of Basel-Stadt, the German municipality of Inzlingen and the German town of Rheinfelden. Its town hall is 6.5 km east of that of

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

and 8 km south of that of Lörrach. London2007zurich img 5739

History

Grenzach-Wyhlen was established on January 1, 1975 from the two independent municipalities Grenzach and Wyhlen in the course of the Baden-Württemberg reform of the local governments. First settlements in today's municipality area are of Celtic origin, belonging to the Hallstatt culture in the early 1st millennium BC. The Celtic settlement was followed by Roman settlements and from the 3rd century on by

Alemanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE ...

c ones. The name "Wyhlen" originates in Alemannic "ze wilon", meaning "at the farmstead". The Roman settlement was called Carantiacum (well of Carantius). From this name today's name Grenzach emerged. In 1982 remains of a Roman villa were excavated. Later on some ruins of an outbuilding were found and archaeologically investigated too. 1991 more walls were found, which were restored and are now visible to the public. The first documented mentioning of the settlement was in the 13th century CE, when Grenzach and Wyhlen were under Frankish rule. In the late

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

the villages were separated by a national border. Grenzach came to the Margraviate of Baden, while Wyhlen belonged to Further Austria. In the Thirty Years' War and in later military conflicts the villages suffered severe devastation. With the founding of the

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 ...

Wyhlen also became Badisch, so that after more than 500 years the two places were again under the same territorial rule.

References

External links

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Grenzach-Wyhlen: History & Images
Lörrach (district) {{Lörrach-geo-stub