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

Verbandsgemeinde A (; plural ) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A is typically composed of a small group of Municipalitie ...

'' – 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 (district), Altenkirchen, Lahn-Dill, Limburg-Weilburg, Rhein ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 States of Germany, German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Ma ...

between

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 ...

and

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 s ...

. Through the community from north to south flows the Ahrbach. Oberahr belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Wallmerod, a kind of collective municipality. Its seat is in the like-named town.

History

Oberahr, in 1490 ''Oberanre'' to use the form in its first documentary mention, lies in the headwaters of the Ahrbach, which was mentioned as early as 959 as the ''Anara''. It is the community's namesake and flows through the municipal area from north to south. Oberahr lay in the former Niederlahngau from its earliest times, in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

and court district of Meudt under the overlordship of the Counts at Diez and Nassau. Under the 1564 Treaties of Diez, the parish of Meudt passed to the

Electorate of Trier The Electorate of Trier ( or '; ) was an Hochstift, ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the end of the 9th to the early 19th century. It was the temporal possession of the prince-archbishop of Trier (') wh ...

, and thereby the Oberahrers lived in the ''Trierschland'' until 1802 under the rule of the ''Krummstab'' (literally “Crooked Staff”, but meaning “

crosier A crozier or crosier (also known as a paterissa, pastoral staff, or bishop's staff) is a stylized staff that is a symbol of the governing office of a bishop or abbot and is carried by high-ranking prelates of Roman Catholic, Eastern Catho ...

”). Later, the Nassau princes took the areas on 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 ...

’s right bank back into their ownership, and as of 1815, Oberahr, too, belonged to the newly formed

Duchy of Nassau The Duchy of Nassau (German language, German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what became the Germany, German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a States of the Confederation of th ...

, after whose annexation in 1866, Oberahr found itself in the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n province of

Hesse-Nassau The Province of Hesse-Nassau () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1868 to 1918, then a province of the Free State of Prussia until 1944. Hesse-Nassau was created as a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War of ...

Politics

Community council

The council is made up of 12 council members who were elected in a

majority vote A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

in a municipal election on 13 June 2004.

Coat of arms

In the community’s

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

the Ahrbach, and thereby also the community’s name, are symbolized by the parting per pale wavy. The former overlords of Nassau and Trier are recalled in the arms by the

tincture A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst In chemistr ...

s blue and gold and the red “Trier Cross” in silver. For the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

and the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

(

Saint Blaise Blaise of Sebaste (, ''Hágios Blásios''; martyred 316 AD) was a physician and bishop of Sivas, Sebastea in historical Lesser Armenia (modern Sivas, Turkey) who is venerated as a Christian saint and martyr. He is counted as one of the Fourteen ...

) stands a bishop's staff that ends in a flame, symbolizing the patron saint's attribute or Saint Blaise's blessing. At the same time, the bishop's staff refers to the Trier ''Krummstab''. The mountains and the Beulstein are heraldically represented in the arms as a blue and gold three-knolled hill (''Dreiberg'' in German

heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...

). The

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and the

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, ...

are each symbolized by a sprouting golden ear and a

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

leaf

Economy and infrastructure

Running right through the community is ''

Bundesstraße ''Bundesstraße'' (, ), 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 ''Bundesstraßen'' are labelled with re ...

'' 255, linking

and

Rennerod Rennerod is a town in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Rennerod, a kind of collective municipality. Within the municipal area, until German Reunification on 3 Octobe ...

. The nearest

Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

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 ''Montabaur'' on the A 3 (

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

–

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

), some 7 km away. The nearest

InterCityExpress Intercity Express (commonly known as ICE () and running under this category) is a high-speed rail system in Germany. It also serves destinations in Austria, France, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands as part of cross-border services. It ...

stop is the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

at Montabaur on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line.

References

External links

Oberahr
Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate Westerwaldkreis {{Westerwaldkreis-geo-stub