Mörlen is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a community belonging to a ''

Verbandsgemeinde A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns. Rhine ...

'' – in the

Westerwaldkreis The Westerwaldkreis ("District of Westerwald") is a district (''Kreis'') in the north-east of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighbouring districts are (from north clockwise) Altenkirchen, Lahn-Dill, Limburg-Weilburg, Rhein-Lahn, the district-fr ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) 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 ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Geography

The community lies in the

Westerwald The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif ( or Rhenish ...

between

Limburg Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...

and

Siegen Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semeste ...

on the boundary with

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhab ...

. The community lies in a hollow on a south slope on the course of the Kleine Nister, and is one of the richest communities in woodlands in the Westerwaldkreis. Mörlen belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Bad Marienberg, a kind of collective municipality. Its seat is in the like-named town.

History

Mörlen is among the oldest settled centres in the Upper Westerwald. While the brook name ''Nigra Morlaha'' had already been mentioned in writings from 914 and 1048, the actual community had its first documentary mention on 13 November 1262 in a document from the

Marienstatt Abbey Marienstatt Abbey (German: Abtei Marienstatt, Latin: ''Abbatia Loci Sanctae Mariæ'') is a Cistercian monastery and a pilgrimage site in Streithausen, Westerwaldkreis, Rhineland-Palatinate, in the Nister valley near Hachenburg. The abbey has an ...

. A church in Mörlen appears in a charter granted by Emperor Frederick II on 19 October 1213 to the Teutonic Knights.http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00066349_00105.html?sortIndex=030%3A040%3A0014%3A010%3A02%3A00&sort=score&order=desc&context=Urkunden+Friedrichs+II&hl=false&fulltext=Urkunden+Friedrichs+II

Politics

The municipal council is made up of 12 council members who were elected in a municipal election on 26 May 2019.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The community's centrepiece is the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

parish

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Ch ...

, ''Maria Empfängnis'' (“

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth wh ...

”). It was built in 1866 and expanded in 1882 and 1949. In 2003, it was fundamentally renovated.

Regular events

The first weekend in July is when the traditional

kermis Kermesse, or kermis, or kirmess, is a Dutch language term derived from 'kerk' ( church) and 'mis' (mass) that became borrowed in English, French, Spanish and many other languages, originally denoting the mass said on the anniversary of the found ...

is always held.

Economy and infrastructure

South of the community runs ''

Bundesstraße ''Bundesstraße'' ( German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways. Germany Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km. German ''Bundesstraße ...

'' 414, leading from Hohenroth (Driedorf) to

Hachenburg Hachenburg is a town in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography The town lies in the Westerwald between Koblenz and Siegen, roughly 10 km west of Bad Marienberg on the river Nister. Hachenburg is the administrative ...

. The nearest

Autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. ...

interchange Interchange may refer to: Transport * Interchange (road), a collection of ramps, exits, and entrances between two or more highways * Interchange (freight rail), the transfer of freight cars between railroad companies * Interchange station, a rai ...

is '' Haiger-Burbach'' on the A 45 (

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is th ...

–

Gießen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

), some 27 km away. There is a bus line running through Mörlen which connects Mörlen to the railway stations of Betzdorf and

. The nearest

InterCityExpress The Intercity Express (commonly known as ICE ()) is a system of high-speed trains predominantly running in Germany. It also serves some destinations in Austria, Denmark (ceased in 2017 but planned to resume in 2022), France, Belgium, Switzerl ...

stop is the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

Montabaur Montabaur () is a town and the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. At the same time, it is also the administrative centre of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Montabaur – a kind of collective municipality – to wh ...

on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line.

References

External links

Mörlen in the collective municipality’s Web pages
Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate Westerwaldkreis {{Westerwaldkreis-geo-stub