Leun is a small town in the
Lahn-Dill-Kreis
Lahn-Dill is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the west of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Siegen-Wittgenstein, Marburg-Biedenkopf, Gießen, Wetteraukreis, Hochtaunuskreis, Limburg-Weilburg, Westerwaldkreis.
History
The southern district belo ...
in
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 ...
, Germany.
Geography
Location
Leun lies some 10 km west of
Wetzlar
Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...
between the foothills of the northern
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 span ...
and 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 ...
in the
Lahn
The Lahn is a , right (or eastern) tributary of the Rhine in Germany. Its course passes through the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (23.0 km), Hesse (165.6 km), and Rhineland-Palatinate (57.0 km).
It has its source in t ...
valley, at a height of 150 to 330 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 ...
.
Neighbouring communities
Leun borders in the north on the communities of
Greifenstein
Greifenstein is a municipality in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany. Its administrative seat is Beilstein. Greifenstein covers 67.43 km² on the eastern slope of the Westerwald range. It was named for the castle of the same name in th ...
and
Ehringshausen
Ehringshausen is a municipality in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany.
Geography
Location
Ehringshausen lies in the valley of the Dill between Wetzlar and Herborn.
Neighbouring communities
Ehringshausen borders in the north on the community ...
, in the east on the town of
Solms
Geography
Location
Solms lies right in the Lahn valley at the mouth of the eponymous little river Solmsbach and is nestled between the foothills of both the Taunus and Westerwald at heights from 140 to 400 m above sea level. It is about 7& ...
, in the south on the town of
Braunfels (all in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis) and in the west on the community of
Löhnberg
Löhnberg is a municipality north of Weilburg in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.
Geography
Location
Löhnberg lies between Wetzlar and the district seat of Limburg an der Lahn.
Neighbouring communities
Löhnberg borders in the ...
(
Limburg-Weilburg
Limburg-Weilburg is a Kreis (district) in the west of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Lahn-Dill, Hochtaunuskreis, Rheingau-Taunus, Rhein-Lahn, Westerwaldkreis.
History
*1867 the ''Oberlahnkreis'', capital Weilburg was created
*1886 the ...
).
Constituent communities
The town consists of the five centres of Biskirchen, Bissenberg, Lahnbahnhof, Leun and Stockhausen.
History
Leun had its first documentary mention in 771. Building a stone
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
in the late 15th century and being granted market rights helped the village's economic growth, which in 1664 resulted in town rights being granted.
As part of Hesse's municipal reform, the new, bigger town of Leun came into being when the main town of Leun and the other aforesaid communities voluntarily joined together on 1 January 1972.
Politics
Town council
The municipal elections on 6 March 2016 yielded the following results:
Note: FWG is a citizens' coalition.
Partnerships
The town of Leun maintains partnerships with the following places:
*
Feytiat in the département of
Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne (; oc, Nauta Vinhana, ; English: Upper Vienne) is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwest-central France. Named after the Vienne River, it is one of the twelve departments that together constitute Nouvelle-Aquitai ...
since 1980
*
Rastenberg :''The Polish town of Kętrzyn was formerly known as Rastenburg.''
Rastenberg is a town in the district of Sömmerda, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 22 km east of Sömmerda, and 23 km northeast of Weimar.
History
Within the Germ ...
,
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
since 1990
Sightseeing
Evangelical Church
In the historic main town of Leun stands the Evangelical Church, whose exact building date is unknown. The mighty "defensive" tower and the main nave are
Romanesque, whereas the
sanctuary
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...
's and
transept
A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...
's origins are early and late
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
respectively.
Within the church is an old and, in terms of
art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
, meaningful, wooden
pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...
with panelling showing
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Anat ...
n motifs. In the transept stands the
organ built in 1808 by the brothers
Philipp Heinrich and
Johann Georg Bürgy. It has 13
stops
Stop may refer to:
Places
*Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
on one
manual keyboard, and a
pedalboard. In the tower hang three
bell
A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inter ...
s, none of which comes from the bellmaker's that originally did business in the town.
Up from the church lies the
graveyard
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
in which can be found remains of the old town wall and the old Upper Gate.
Historic town core
The town core still has a few stately
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 ...
houses that bear witness to the town's bygone wealth. In one is housed the town museum. The best known among them is the ''Erkerhaus'' ("Bay Window House") on Limburger Straße, which nowadays is counted among the town's landmarks. At the great
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 ...
porch into the yard, the remains of the former ''Junkernhof'' (see
Junker
Junker ( da, Junker, german: Junker, nl, Jonkheer, en, Yunker, no, Junker, sv, Junker ka, იუნკერი (Iunkeri)) is a noble honorific, derived from Middle High German ''Juncherre'', meaning "young nobleman"Duden; Meaning of Junke ...
) can be recognized, seat of the family Mohr, with a still preserved manor house. Also worth seeing are the old mill and the old Latin school.
Biskirchen
In the constituent community of Biskirchen are the ruins of the old ''Bischofskirche'' (Bishop's Church), and a well house housing the healing
spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season)
Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...
that appears here.
Natural monuments
In the northern forest is the ''Leuner Burg'', but although "Burg" means "castle", it is actually a former
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...
which is now considered a natural monument.
Sport
Leun is where the regular
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
tournament called the Leun Open is held.
Transport
Leun lies on Federal Highway (''Bundesstraße'') 49.
To the north, by way of
Ehringshausen
Ehringshausen is a municipality in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany.
Geography
Location
Ehringshausen lies in the valley of the Dill between Wetzlar and Herborn.
Neighbouring communities
Ehringshausen borders in the north on the community ...
, is an interchange with the
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.
Within Leun's municipal area are found two
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 tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
s,
Leun/Braunfels (in the constituent community of Lahnbahnhof) and Stockhausen on the
Lahntal railway
The Lahntal railway (German: ''Lahntalbahn'') is a railway line between Niederlahnstein in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate to Wetzlar in Hesse. Its western terminus was originally in Oberlahnstein. Trains now mostly operate between Kob ...
(''Lahntalbahn'') running from
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 ...
through
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 ...
to
Koblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary.
Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...
.
Notable residents
*
Harald Turner
Harald Turner (8 October 1891 – 9 March 1947) was an SS commander and ''Staatsrat'' (privy councillor) in the German military administration of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia in the partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia durin ...
(1891–1947), German Nazi SS commander executed for war crimes
References
External links
Leun*
{{Authority control
Lahn-Dill-Kreis