Niederstaufenbach

Niederstaufenbach
Municipality
Coat of arms
Location of Niederstaufenbach within Kusel district
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Kusel
Municipal assoc.	Altenglan
Government
• Mayor	Werner Kraus
Area
• Total	2.01 km2 (0.78 sq mi)
Elevation	240 m (790 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)
• Total	255
• Density	130/km2 (330/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	66879
Dialling codes	06385
Vehicle registration	KUS

Niederstaufenbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Altenglan, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

Geography

Location

Niederstaufenbach lies in the Western Palatinate between the Walbersberg and the Krämel (mountains), on both sides of the Reichenbach.

Neighbouring municipalities

Niederstaufenbach borders in the north on the municipality of Bosenbach, in the east on the municipality of Reichenbach-Steegen, in the south on the municipality of Oberstaufenbach and in the west on the municipality of Föckelberg.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor

Niederstaufenbach’s mayor is Werner Kraus.

Coat of arms

The municipality’s arms might be described thus: Or issuant from base and dexter crags sable and to sinister a lion rampant crowned gules armed and langued azure, on a chief of the second a fess wavy of the first.

Niederstaufenbach’s arms bear the same charges in the same composition as Oberstaufenbach’s. The only heraldic difference lies in the tinctures. The tinctures sable and Or (black and gold) are a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Counts of Veldenz, while the lion in gules (red) refers to another former lord, the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken. The crags and the wavy fess on the chief are canting charges for the municipality’s name, Stauf being an archaic word for “crag” in German (the usual word is Fels or Felsen), and the wavy fess standing for a brook, or in German, Bach. Nieder means the same as its English cognate “nether”, namely “lower”.

Economy and infrastructure

Transport

Niederstaufenbach is a bedroom community. To the southwest runs the Autobahn A 62 (Kaiserslautern–Trier). Serving Altenglan is a railway station on the Glantalbahn.

External links

• Niederstaufenbach in the collective municipality’s webpages Template:De icon