Südliche Weinstraße (; ; ) is a district (''Kreis'') in the south of

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 ...

. Neighboring districts are (from west clockwise) Südwestpfalz,

Bad Dürkheim Bad Dürkheim () is a spa town in the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration. It is the seat of the Bad Dürkheim (district), Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and the site of the discovery of the element caesium, in 1860. Geogra ...

, the district-free city Neustadt (Weinstraße), Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis,

Germersheim Germersheim () is a town in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, of around 20,000 inhabitants. It is also the seat of the Germersheim (district), Germersheim district. The neighboring towns and cities are Speyer, Landau, Philippsburg, Karlsru ...

, and the French ''

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

. The district-free city

Landau Landau (), officially Landau in der Pfalz (, ), is an autonomous (''kreisfrei'') town surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße ("Southern Wine Route") district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town (since 1990), a long ...

is surrounded by the district.

History

On May 27, 1832 the Hambacher Fest took place in the castle of Hambach, an event which marks the beginning of the German democracy. The district was formed in 1969 by merging the districts Landau and Bergzabern. At first the name of the new district was ''Landau-Bad Bergzabern'', it was renamed to ''Südliche Weinstraße'' in 1978.

Geography

The district is named after the first touristic route built in Germany in the 1930s, the German Wine Route ''(Deutsche Weinstraße)''. It starts in Bockenheim an der Weinstraße, goes through

, Deidesheim, and after 85 kilometers ends in Schweigen-Rechtenbach (near Bad Bergzabern). The river Lauter forms part of the boundary with France in the south.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms is very similar to that of the previous district Landau. In the top-left is the lion of the

Electorate of the Palatinate The Electoral Palatinate was a Imperial State, constituent state of the Holy Roman Empire until it was annexed by the Electorate of Baden in 1803. From the end of the 13th century, its ruler was one of the Prince-electors who elected the Holy ...

. The white bar in the middle symbolizes the ''Weinstraße'', the touristic route which gave the district its name. The bottom-right show two bunches of

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

s, again symbolizing the route. The cross stands for

Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...

, as the diocese of Speyer owned land in the district historically. The crown in the middle is taken from the coat of arms of the Bad Bergzabern district, symbolizing the Trifels and Annweiler areas.

Towns and municipalities

References

External links