The Hochtaunuskreis is a ''Kreis'' (

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

) in the middle of

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Dar ...

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 ...

and is part of the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Neighbouring districts are

Lahn-Dill Lahn-Dill is an electoral constituency (German: ''Wahlkreis'') represented in the Bundestag. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system, it is designated as constituency 172. It is located i ...

Wetteraukreis The Wetteraukreis is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the middle of Hesse, Germany. Neighbouring districts are Landkreis Gießen, Vogelsbergkreis, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, district-free Stadt Frankfurt, Hochtaunuskreis and Lahn-Dill-Kreis. History The distri ...

, district-free

Frankfurt 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 it ...

, Main-Taunus, Rheingau-Taunus, Limburg-Weilburg. The Hochtaunuskreis and the Landkreis Starnberg regularly compete for the title of the wealthiest district in Germany.

History

The district was created in 1972 when the previous districts Obertaunus and Usingen were merged.

Geography

Geographically it covers the

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 ...

mountains. The highest elevation of the Taunus, the 881 meter high Großer Feldberg, is in the district. Lowest elevation of the district with 130m is the village ''Ober Erlenbach''. The wealthy towns in the district's densely populated southern part belong to the Frankfurt urban area.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms is a

dimidiation In heraldry, dimidiation is a method of marshalling (heraldically combining) two coats of arms. For a time, dimidiation preceded the method known as impalement. Whereas impalement involves placing the whole of both coats of arms side by side ...

of the arms of the Obertaunus district in the left half and the Usingen district in the right half. It shows a lion, the left half in the red-white striped style of the

lion, the right side the golden color lion of Nassau. Additionally in the left four bells which were taken from the counts of Kronberg, and in the right four trefoils from the coat of arms of the city of Usingen.

Towns and municipalities

References

External links

* (German) {{Authority control