Modautal (, ) is a municipality in the

Darmstadt-Dieburg Darmstadt-Dieburg is a Kreis (district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Offenbach, Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg, Odenwaldkreis, Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau, and the district-free city of Darmstadt, which it surrounds. Histo ...

district, in

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

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 ...

. Approximately 5,050 inhabitants live in 11 districts on an area of 31 km² with about 38.7% wood. The first historical chronicles date back to the 13th century.

History

The municipality was formed in 1977 by putting together eleven districts during the so-called Gebietsreform. During the time of the

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

the area must have already been inhabited since the so-called "Heuneburg" on a hill in

Fischbachtal Fischbachtal (, ) is a municipality in southern Hesse (Germany) in the district Darmstadt-Dieburg. The municipality has a total population of 2,686 inhabitants. The current mayor is Philipp Thoma, elected in 2017. Geography Constituent commun ...

was a Celtic castle where the people and their animals from the region could flee ( ''Fluchtburg''). To construct such a building, a lot of helping hands must have been living nearby. In the Middle Ages, the eleven villages of Modautal belonged to different knight's families: The family of ''Rodenstein'', the family from ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...

'', the one from ''Mosbach'', the family of ''Wallbrunn'' as well as ''Stumpf von Asbach'' and ''Kalb von Reinheim'' just to name a few. The oldest available documents date back to 1651 and are the so-called "Haingerichtsbücher" (written rules of the peasants in Brandau). During the revolution in 1848 and due to failure of crops, huge parts of the inhabitants of the villages emigrated to North America.

Town districts

Desprition of town districts
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References

External links

Website Modautal(in German)
Darmstadt-Dieburg Municipalities in Hesse {{Hesse-geo-stub