Börfink is an '' Ortsgemeinde'' – a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

belonging to a ''

Verbandsgemeinde A (; plural ) is a low-level administrative division, administrative unit in the Germany, German States of Germany, federal states of Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A is typically composed of a small group of Municipalitie ...

'', a kind of collective municipality – in the

Birkenfeld Birkenfeld () is a town and the district seat of the Birkenfeld (district), Birkenfeld Districts of Germany, district in southwest Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is also the seat of the Birkenfeld (Verbandsgemeinde), like-named ''Verbandsge ...

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, municip ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) 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 sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Birkenfeld, whose seat is in the like-named town.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies on the Traunbach near the 816 m-high

Erbeskopf The Erbeskopf () is a mountain in the Hunsrück range in central Germany. At a height of , it is the highest point in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as the highest point of German territory on the western bank of the Rhine. It lies ...

in the ''Schwarzwälder Hochwald'' (forest) in the

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

. The municipal area is 78.8% wooded.

Neighbouring municipalities

Börfink borders in the southeast on Abentheuer and in the southwest on Muhl, an outlying centre of Neuhütten.

Constituent communities

Also belonging to Börfink are the outlying homesteads of Einschiederhof, Forellenhof Trauntal and Thranenweier.

Climate

Yearly

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

in Börfink amounts to 1 133 mm, which is very high, falling into the highest tenth of the precipitation chart for all Germany. At 91% of the German Weather Service's

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...

s, lower figures are recorded. The driest month is July. The most rainfall comes in December. In that month, precipitation is 1.5 times what it is in July. Precipitation varies markedly. Only at 23% of the weather stations are higher seasonal swings recorded.

History

In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, Börfink belonged to the “Hinder”

County of Sponheim The County of Sponheim (, former spelling: Spanheim, Spanheym) was an independent territory in the Holy Roman Empire that lasted from the 11th century until the early 19th century. The name comes from the municipality of Sponheim, where the cou ...

, while in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n times it belonged to the Trier district. The ''Kommandobunker Börfink'', also known as ''Bunker Erwin'', was brought into service in 1964. This was, among other things, a secret

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

bunker at the Erbeskopf that was used for air surveillance in Central Europe during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. On 1 January 1971, the municipality, which had until this time been called Börfink-Muhl, dropped the second part of its name, and has been known ever since as Börfink.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by

majority vote A majority is more than half of a total; however, the term is commonly used with other meanings, as explained in the "#Related terms, Related terms" section below. It is a subset of a Set (mathematics), set consisting of more than half of the se ...

at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor

Börfink's mayor is Martin Döscher.

Coat of arms

The German blazon reads: ''In schräglinksgeteiltem Schild vorne rot-silber geschacht, hinten in Schwarz ein goldenes Köhlerfeuer.'' The municipality'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 in English

heraldic Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branc ...

language be described thus: Per bend sinister chequy gules and argent, and sable a charcoal maker's fire Or. The “chequy” pattern on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side is a reference to the village's former allegiance to the “Hinder”

, '' Oberamt'' of Birkenfeld. The

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 Aqu ...

on the sinister (armsbearer's left, viewer's right) side, the charcoal maker's fire, refers to a legend about the village's founding: On the right bank of the Trau, on what is now Börfink's location, a man named Balduin Hartmann is said to have built the first charcoal-making operation, named ''Balduinshäuschen'' after him. The arms have been borne since 5 September 1972.

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in

’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:Directory of Cultural Monuments in Birkenfeld district
/ref> * Dorfstraße 13 – ''Quereinhaus'' (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street) with

whole-grain A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. As part of a general healthy diet, consumption of whole grains is associated wit ...

mill and inn, 1865, upper floor, 1878

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

To the east runs ''

Bundesstraße ''Bundesstraße'' (, ), 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'' are labelled with re ...

'' 41, and to the south runs the

Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

A 62 (

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; ) is a town in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, 666 kilometers (414 m ...

–

Trier Trier ( , ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , ) and Triers (see also Names of Trier in different languages, names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle (river), Moselle in Germany. It lies in a v ...

). Available in nearby Neubrücke is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the

Nahe Valley Railway The Nahe Valley Railway () is a two-track, partially electrified main line railway in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, which runs for almost 100 kilometres along the Nahe (Rhine), Nahe. It was built by the Rhine-Nahe Railway ...

( Bingen–

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ''Sabrigge'' ; ; ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken has 181,959 inhabitants and is Saarland's administrative, commerci ...

References

External links

Municipality’s official webpage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borfink Birkenfeld (district)