Waldbreitbach is a municipality in the
district of Neuwied, in
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 ...
,
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 situated in the
Westerwald, on the river
Wied, approx. 16 km north of
Neuwied.
Waldbreitbach was the seat of the former ''
Verbandsgemeinde
A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns.
Rhineland- ...
'' ("collective municipality")
Waldbreitbach
Waldbreitbach is a municipality in the Neuwied (district), district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated in the Westerwald, on the river Wied (river), Wied, approx. 16 km north of Neuwied.
Waldbreitbach was the seat of ...
.
History
The place was first mentioned in documents (spelled "Bretpah") in 857. In the following centuries the dominion over the place changed several times between
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 ...
,
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
and
Sayn
Sayn was a small German county of the Holy Roman Empire which, during the Middle Ages, existed within what is today Rheinland-Pfalz.
There have been two Counties of Sayn. The first emerged in 1139 and became closely associated with the County o ...
. Between 1806 and 1815 the village belonged to the
Duchy of Nassau, then to
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
.
Population
In 1815 406 people were living in Waldbreitbach. This number increased to 2118 in 1997 and as of 2018 there were officially 1828 inhabitants.
Waldbreitbach mill
On the Wied stands an
oil mill, which started production in 1676. Only four years later it was destroyed by a flood. The mill was rebuilt in 1700 and was in operation until 1948. It is considered the oldest oil mill of this type in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
. In the 1990s an old half-timbered house was dismantled in nearby Bremscheid and rebuilt next to the mill as a museum of crafts and trade. About 100 meters upstream stands a mill with a water wheel from 1911.
References
Neuwied (district)
{{Neuwied-geo-stub