The Köppel, at , is the second highest point in the Montabaur Heights, an elongated hill ridge in the Lower Westerwald in

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 is second only to the nearby Alarmstange (545.2 m) and lies on the boundary 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 w ...

and Dernbach in the county of

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-free ...

in the state of

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 ...

. At the summit is the Köppel viewing tower.

Name

In the Westerwald dialect ''Köppel'' is the general name for a hill or mountain, possibly related to the Alemannic word ''Kapf'' meaning a mountain or hill with a good view. It probably goes back to the original

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

term for high points in the terrain and means "small head".

Geography

Location

The Köppel is located within the

Nassau Nature Park The Nassau Nature Park (german: Naturpark Nassau) is a nature park in the southwestern Westerwald and the northwestern Taunus area of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, located within the historical state of Nassau and including the town ...

. Its summit is on the boundary between the parish of Dernbach, whose village is 4 km to the northeast, and the borough of

, whose town is 5.7 km to the east. The majority of the summit region is on the Dernbach side. To the west-southwest, the terrain transitions to the hill of Alarmstange, 1.5 km away. On the north flank of the hill rises the Masselbach; on the northeast side, the Schabebornbach and Waldbach. The Biebrichsbach, a headstream of the Stadtbach which rises on the Alarmstange, flows past to the south. The headstreams of the

Brexbach The Brexbach (historically: ''Brachysa'') is a river, just under long, and an orographically left-hand tributary of the Saynbach in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Course The ''Brexbach'' is formed by the uniting of the ''Hinterster ...

, the Vorderste Bach and Hinterste Bach, rise to the west-northwest and northwest of the summit.

Natural regions

The Köppel is located within the

natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecology, ecological point of view, the naturally occurring fl ...

major unit group of 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 ...

(no. 32), the major unit of the Lower Westerwald (324) and the subunit of the Montabaur Heights (324.1).

Conservation

The Köppel is covered by

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

mixed forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These for ...

and

conifer Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...

s. Part of the ''Montabaur Heights''

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and ap ...

lies on the mountain (no. 5512-301; 28.11

km² Square kilometre ( International spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square kilometer (American spelling), symbol km2, is a multiple of the square metre, the SI unit of area or surface area. 1 km2 is equ ...

Köppel viewing tower

On the summit region of the Köppel in the parish of Dernbach is the Köppel viewing tower which was built from 1964 to 1966 from

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

and which is 37.48 m high. It has a covered viewing platform 28.8 metres above the ground offering views over the Westerwald and the volcanoes in the

Pellenz The Pellenz is a hill country in the northwestern part of the Middle Rhine Basin in Germany between Mayen in the southwest and Andernach in the northeast. In addition Pellenz is the name of a ''Verbandsgemeinde'' in the state of Rhineland-Palat ...

and as far as the

Eifel The Eifel (; lb, Äifel, ) is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of ...

Taunus The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is ''Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and ''Altkönig'' (798 m). The Taunus range spans ...

and

Hunsrück The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...

. It has transmitters for the D2 mobile network. In the vicinity of the tower is a restaurant.

Footnotes and references

Prof. Dr. Paul Vogt: ''Die Ortsnamen im Engersgau'', Strüder'sche Buchdruckerei and Buchhandlung, Neuwied 1890 Heinrich Müller-Miny, Martin Bürgener: ''Geographische Landesaufnahme: Die naturräumlichen Einheiten auf Blatt 138 Koblenz.'' Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde, Bad Godesberg 1971. →&nbs
Online-Karte
(PDF; 5,7 MB) Informationstafel am Turm
auf ich-geh-wandern.de Höhenangabe laut privat durchgeführten Messungen

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koppel Mountains and hills of the Westerwald Mountains and hills of Rhineland-Palatinate