Kahl am Main (officially ''Kahl a. Main'') is a community in the
Aschaffenburg district in the ''
Regierungsbezirk
A ' () means "governmental district" and is a type of administrative division in Germany. Four of sixteen ' ( states of Germany) are split into '. Beneath these are rural and urban districts.
Saxony has ' (directorate districts) with more res ...
'' of
Lower Franconia
Lower Franconia (german: Unterfranken) is one of seven districts of Bavaria, Germany. The districts of Lower, Middle and Upper Franconia make up the region of Franconia.
History
After the founding of the Kingdom of Bavaria the state was totally r ...
(''Unterfranken'') in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It has around 7,500 inhabitants.
Geography
Location
![Gemeinde Kahl am Main](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Gemeinde_Kahl_am_Main.svg)
Kahl am Main lies 107 m above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
and includes, at the mouth of the river
Kahl, the lowest-lying point in the state of Bavaria and covers an area of approximately 11 km
2. It also lies right on the boundary with
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...
in a favourable location with regards to transport between
Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat.
Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...
and
Hanau
Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ...
(
Main-Kinzig-Kreis
Main-Kinzig-Kreis is a Kreis (district) in the east of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Wetteraukreis, Vogelsbergkreis, Fulda, Bad Kissingen, Main-Spessart, Aschaffenburg, Offenbach and the district-free cities of Offenbach and Frankfu ...
).
Demographics
Kahl has a rate of population growth between −0.1% and 0.1%. It also has an aging population with the largest age group being 65 and above in 2014. The average age has increased from 46 in 2005 to 47.5 in 2014. Even though there have been fewer births than deaths consistently since 1975, the city has experiences slight growth due to newcomers.
Governance
Community council
The council is made up of 21 council members, counting the mayor.
(as at municipal election held on 2 March 2008)
Coat of arms
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 ...
might be described thus: Party per bend sinister wavy, the parting surmounted by a bend sinister wavy argent, azure a coney courant of the first in bend sinister, gules a demi-
wheel
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...
spoked of six of the first couped in bend sinister.
The community of Kahl lies on a bend in the river
Main
Main may refer to:
Geography
* Main River (disambiguation)
**Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany
* Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province
*"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries
...
, and this is referenced by the bend sinister wavy (slanted wavy stripe) in the arms. This also refers to the river
Kahl, which is part of the community's name. 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 argent and gules (silver and red) and the half-wheel refer to
Electoral Mainz's former overlordship in the community. The silver hare recalls the Kahl dwellers’ nickname ''Sandhasen'' (“Sand Hares”) – sometimes also ''Sandbauern'' (“Sand Farmers”) – arising from the community's lower crop yields than in other Main communities due to the sandy soil. Since 1806 the place has belonged to Bavaria, which is reflected in the tinctures argent and azure (blue).
The arms have been borne since 19 July 1960.
Town twinning
*
Villefontaine
Villefontaine () is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France.
Geography
The Bourbre flows northwest through the northeastern part of the commune.
Population
Twin towns – sister cities
Villefontaine is twinned with:
* Kah ...
,
Isère
Isère ( , ; frp, Isera; oc, Isèra, ) is a landlocked department in the southeastern French region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Named after the river Isère, it had a population of 1,271,166 in 2019.[France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...]
since 1981
*
Budakalász
Budakalász is a town in Pest county, Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary. Residents are Magyars, with a minority of Serbs.
The town includes within its boundaries the island of Lupa, situated on the Danube.
Twin towns – sister cities
Budaka ...
,
Pest County,
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
since 1998
*
St. Ingbert-Rohrbach,
Saarland
The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
1968–1970
*
Leutasch
Leutasch is a municipality in the northern part of the district Innsbruck-Land in the Austrian state of Tyrol about 30 km northwest of Innsbruck and 10 km northwest of Seefeld in Tirol
Geography
The village lies in the Leutaschtal, a ...
,
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
The latter relationship is a "town friendship".
Economy
Within Kahl's municipal limits, roughly 350 businesses have their seats, among them Kopp (500 employees), Linde Material Handling GmbH (550 employees) and Singulus Technologies (350 employees), three big companies in engine building and electronics. Business taxes from all businesses lie between €3,300,000 and €9,100,000 each year.
Culture and sightseeing
Clubs
Clubs include the ''Feuerwehr FF-Kahl'' (
fire brigade
A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...
) and the ''
Rotes Kreuz Kahl''. There was an umbrella group, the ''Vereinsgemeinschaft Kahl'' (“Kahl Club Community”), to which many of the local clubs belonged, and which, among other things, staged the yearly ''
Kerb
A curb (North American English), or kerb (Commonwealth English except Canada; see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk or road median/central reservation meets a street or other roadway.
History
Although curbs have ...
''. Even though the community dissolved in 2016, the Kerb has been taken up by several other communities and is now organized by volunteers.
Buildings
*
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
''Schloss Emmerichshofen'', built in 1768 by Baron von Bentzel-Sternau.
*Saint Margaret's
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
parish church (''Katholische Pfarrkirche Sankt Margareta'') in
Baroque Revival
The Baroque Revival, also known as Neo-Baroque (or Second Empire architecture in France and Wilhelminism in Germany), was an architectural style of the late 19th century. The term is used to describe architecture and architectural sculptur ...
style, made of red quarried
Buntsandstein
The Buntsandstein (German for ''coloured'' or ''colourful sandstone'') or Bunter sandstone is a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphy, allostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the Subsurface (geology), subsurface ...
. A church was first mentioned at this site in 1330.
*
Evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
Cross Church (''Evangelische Kreuzkirche'') in
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
style.
*Town hall: former customs house, built in 1830 in
Neoclassical style, after 1834 a match and cigarette factory, after that an inn, weather station and school, since 1939 the community administration's seat.
*Watertower, built in 1931.
*Bakehouse (''Backes''): public oven, in which until 1938 bread was baked for almost 300 years. Today it is one of the oldest constructions of the city.
*
Timber-frame
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
house (former estate), known to have stood before the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
; later a house and an inn; damaged by improper drain restoration.
*Sand Hare Monument (''Sandhasendenkmal''): Kahl landmark of the former sand quarrying in the region, built in 1952 by Hermann Kröckel. The sand hare is also a
charge
Charge or charged may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary
Music
* ''Charge'' (David Ford album)
* ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album)
* ''Charge!!'', an album by The Aqua ...
in the community's arms.
*Mills on the Kahl: Once, eleven mills were running on the lower three kilometres of the
Kahlgrund
The Kahlgrund () is an area in the northern Spessart in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, Germany, following the valley of the river Kahl. It roughly corresponds to the former district of Alzenau, which was merged into the district of Aschaffenburg in 197 ...
upstream from where the Kahl empties into the Main. The first was mentioned in 1358. Ground were grain,
mustard seed
Mustard seeds are the small round seeds of various mustard plants. The seeds are usually about in diameter and may be colored from yellowish white to black. They are an important spice in many regional foods and may come from one of three diff ...
and
oilseed
Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or fat ...
. “Sand mills” played a rôle beginning about 1900. In one of the
fulling
Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
mills with 15 workers, Nikolaus Wahl brought the world's first automatic
felt
Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...
making machine into service in 1904. At the beginning of the 21st century, only a few mills bear witness to that time, and some have been converted to houses: ''Obere Fallersmühle, Untere Fallersmühle (rolling mill), Schäfereimühle, Lohmühle, Nassmühle''. Since the millers often backed the water up too high, there were time and again floods. In particular, the ''Nassmühle'' (literally, “Wet Mill”) came to grief one day in the late 16th century when local farmers, angered at having their harvest wiped out by flooding, stormed the mill on 2 June 1573 and destroyed it. A hiking path with documentary plaques follows the historic mill route.
Parks
*The ''Vogelpark Kahl'' ("bird park") was founded in 1971 and was a three-hectare non-profit aviary and open-air complex for domestic and exotic birds. On 30 June 2006, the bird park was closed on consideration of the
bird flu
"Bird Flu" is an urumee melam-dance song by recording artist M.I.A. on her second studio album '' Kala'' (2007). It was released as a digital download in 2006 through XL Recordings under exclusive license to Interscope Records in the US. Cr ...
regulations, such as those requiring confinement.
Nature
The local scenery is characterized by forest and water, which make up 75% of the municipal area. The quarry lakes of the Kahl Lake Plateau (''Kahler Seenplatte'') with outdoor bathing at ''Waldseebad'' (former ''Emma-Nord'' stripmine) and ''Campingsee'' (''Freigericht-Ost'') with one of Bavaria's biggest campsites as well as the angling ponds of the former ''Emma-Süd'' pit and the ''Vorspessartseen'' (lakes) offer opportunities for angling, boating, swimming and surfing. Five hiking trails and a fitness course (''Vitaparcours'') lead through the Kahl nature areas with their typical vegetation and sand flora. Many wild herbs,
hogweed
Hogweed is a common name for several unrelated plants.
Hogweed may refer to:
* '' Heracleum'', a genus in the carrot family containing several plants often called hogweed, including:
** ''Heracleum sphondylium'', the common hogweed
** ''Heracleu ...
,
wild carrot
''Daucus carota'', whose common names include wild carrot, European wild carrot, bird's nest, bishop's lace, and Queen Anne's lace (North America), is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae. It is native to temperate regions of the Old World ...
and
malva
''Malva'' is a genus of herbaceous annual, biennial, and perennial plants in the family Malvaceae. It is one of several closely related genera in the family to bear the common English name mallow. The genus is widespread throughout the temper ...
grow in the meadows alongside the Main, where there is also a small campsite.
The natural monument ''Hexeneiche'' (“Witches’ Oak”) on the B 8 was destroyed on 7 August 1970 by a lightning strike. The oak, known to have already been standing in the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
, had to be felled on 8 June 1971. A newly planted oak and a memorial stone recall the witchhunts in the early 17th century, to which 69 women and 21 men fell victim here.
On holidays, the
railway
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 tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
line between Kahl am Main and Schöllkrippen is often used for “Historic Steam Locomotive Journeys”.
The Kahltal-Spessart cycling-hiking trail starts at Kahl.
Infrastructure
Transport
Kahl am Main lies in a favourable location with regards to transport between
Aschaffenburg
Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat.
Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...
and
Hanau
Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ...
with good transport links to
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'. ...
A 45 (
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 univers ...
- Aschaffenburg) as well as Autobahn
A 3 (
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
-
Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg is ...
-
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
-
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
). ''
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 ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
n'' 8 (Aschaffenburg - Hanau), 43 and 43A link Kahl am Main to the
Frankfurt Rhine Main Region
The Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, often simply referred to as Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main area or Rhine-Main area (German: ''Rhein-Main-Gebiet'' or ''Frankfurt/Rhein-Main'', abbreviated FRM), is the second-largest metropolitan re ...
.
The
Main–Spessart railway from Frankfurt to Würzburg, where it connects to
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
and
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, runs through the Kahl am Main station, which is served by
Regional-Express
In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with average speed at about 70–90 km/h (top speed often 160 km/h) as it calls at f ...
services. Here the ''Kahlgrundbahn'' (to
Schöllkrippen
Schöllkrippen is a market community in the Aschaffenburg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany and seat of the ''Verwaltungsgemeinschaft'' (municipal association) of Schöllkrippen. It ha ...
) branches off. Kahl has no goods station. The nearest ones are in Hanau and Aschaffenburg.
The nearest airport is
Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...
.
Utilities
Nuclear power station
Despite the name, the first
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
in Germany, the ''
Versuchsatomkraftwerk Kahl'' ("Kahl Experimental Nuclear Power Station") was not built in Kahl am Main but in the neighbouring municipality of Großwelzheim (now part of
Karlstein am Main
Karlstein am Main (officially ''Karlstein a. Main'') is a municipality in the Aschaffenburg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of G ...
). There were three reasons the plant was not named after Großwelzheim:
*Kahl was easier to pronounce for the U.S. personnel;
*Kahl had a railway station; Großwelzheim did not;
*the plant got its mail from the Kahl Post Office.
The power plant was shut down in 1985 and the reactors have been dismantled.
References
External links
Community’s official webpageCatholic church in Kahl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahl Am Main
Aschaffenburg (district)