Stegen is a municipality in the

Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald (french: Arrondissement de Brisgau-Haute-Forêt-Noire) is a (district) in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Fifty towns and municipalities with 133 settlements lie within the district. The district itself belon ...

district,

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a 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 inhabitants across a ...

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 ...

. It borders on the city of

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, being about 8 km away as the crow flies, lying in the valley of the river

Dreisam The Dreisam ( Celtic: ''*tragisamā'', "the very fast one") is a 29 km long river (48.8 km including its source river Rotbach), and a tributary of the Elz in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The waters of the Dreisam feed the f ...

. The municipality includes three population centres: the town of Stegen (which itself includes the villages of Weiler, Oberbirken, Unterbirken and Rechtenbach) and the villages of Eschbach and Wittental. Economically, Stegen is partly an offshoot of Freiburg; for example, the Forest Zoology Institute of the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württe ...

maintains a field station at Wittental. It also plays a role in

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is ...

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...

, with guest houses and other facilities catering to visitors. It is the first town that a hiker on the Freiburg-Lake Constance Black Forest Trail passes through when travelling eastwards on the path from Freiburg. Wittental

References

Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald Baden {{BreisgauHochschwarzwald-geo-stub