Gleiberger Land
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The Gleiberger Land is a region and a cooperation of four municipalities in Central Hesse .
Geographical location
The Gleiberger Land comprises the communities Wettenberg , Biebertal and Heuchelheim , which belong to the district of Gießen , and the community of Lahnau , which belongs to the Lahn-Dill district . The Gleiberger Land lies to the north or to the right of the Lahn and includes the so-called Lahn main terrace at this point. With regard to the allocation to the low mountain range, it goes over to the Gladenbacher Bergland . The Gleiberger Land lies to the west and northwest of Gießen and east of Wetzlar . Due to its location between the two district towns and regional centers, the Gleiberger Land belongs to the so-called urban agglomeration of Central Hesse.
Formative landscape
The Gleiberger Land is dominated by several small hills. One of them, which gave the region its name, is the 308 m high Gleiberg with Gleiberg Castle , which is located in Wettenberg. The counterpart is the 310 m high Vetzberg , on which there is also a castle ruin. In the vicinity, the Dünsberg stands out as the highest elevation at 498 m. On the Dünsberg there is an observation tower and a transmission mast, which is visible from far in the region, in the design of an urban telecommunications tower. Vetzberg and Dünsberg are in Biebertal.
Another hill is the 348 m high Königstuhl, which lies north of Lahnau and forms the border with Biebertal. Lahnau and Heuchelheim are located in the so-called Giessen Basin , the southern branch of the Marburg-Giessen Lahn valley . In the Giessen basin, the Lahn changes its course from south to west. The valley widened here has large deposits of gravel. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the plan was to remove a large amount of the gravel over the surface and then build a water sports center that would have been suitable for the Olympics. However, this was not pursued any further and one of the largest nature reserves in Hessen is now located here .
Locations in the Gleiberger Land
The four municipalities of the Gleiberger Land were created in their current composition through the regional reform in Hesse from 1971 to 1977 and 1979 respectively. Wettenberg includes the districts of Krofdorf-Gleiberg , Launsbach and Wißmar . Rodheim-Bieber , Vetzberg , Fellingshausen , Krumbach , Frankenbach and Königsberg belong to Biebertal . Lahnau form Atzbach , Dorlar and Waldgirmes . Heuchelheim is formed from Kinzenbach and Heuchelheim.
Statistical values
The total area of the Gleiberger Land covers 121.40 km². Of this, 23% is settlement area and 57% is forested. The total population is 38,611 (as of June 30, 2007), which corresponds to a population density of 265 inhabitants per square kilometer. The population is divided among the municipalities as follows: Wettenberg 12,546, Biebertal 10,268, Lahnau 8,201 and Heuchelheim 7,596.
tourism
The Gleiberger Land has only recently been discovered for tourism. The Lahn, Germany's most popular river for canoeists, has developed a good infrastructure. The low mountain range also attracts more and more visitors. Accommodation options are available in all four municipalities, as well as a large number of leisure facilities that are not taken for granted in many other places. In order to better coordinate everything with one another, the Gleiberger Land communities have formed the Gleiberger Land tourism cooperation.
Intermunicipal cooperation
Due to various factors relating to infrastructure and services of general interest, the task of looking for cooperation across communal borders is becoming more and more urgent. As early as 1994, Biebertal, Heuchelheim and Wettenberg decided to establish an inter-municipal cooperation. In 2000, this also joined Lahnau. Difficult in this context are overarching aspects that result from the fact that Lahnau is in the Lahn-Dill district and the other three municipalities in the district of Gießen.
City of Lahn and local government reform
The communities Wettenberg, Heuchelheim and Lahnau have existed since August 1, 1979. Between January 1, 1977 and July 31, 1979, the places of these three municipalities belonged to the city of Lahn , an amalgamation of Gießen and Wetzlar and 14 surrounding municipalities. The city of Lahn was dissolved due to civil protests. Almost all places in today's Heuchelheim, Lahnau and Wettenberg were independent until 1977, only the Lahnau district of Dorlar belonged to the city of Wetzlar from 1972 to 1977; Kinzenbach and Heuchelheim had already merged in 1967. In Biebertal, which did not belong to the city of Lahn, they merged as early as 1970, and Frankenbach joined in 1977.
Road network
The Gleiberger Land is directly connected to the trunk road network. There is a junction in Wettenberg that connects the A 480 and the B 429 . AS Wettenberg is part of the Gießener Ring . From here you can take the A 480 after 13 km to the Reiskirchener Dreieck to the A 5 , which has existed as HaFraBa since the 1930s . The Rhine-Main area (70 km), Kassel (140 km) and Thuringia (160 km) can be reached quickly. In Lahnau there is a junction (Wetzlar-Ost) with the A 45 on the border with Wetzlar , from where the Cologne-Bonn area (160 km) and the Ruhr area (160 km) can be reached. In the Lahn valley itself is the B 49 , an east-west tangent that has been developed as a motor vehicle and runs from Gießen via Wetzlar to Limburg . The B 49 between Gießen and Wetzlar already has four lanes and between Wetzlar and Limburg it is being expanded so that you can also quickly get to Rhineland-Palatinate and Luxembourg to the west . In Gleiberger Land itself there are numerous state and district roads, most of which are in good condition and provide sufficient links between the individual places.
Transportation
Like Central Hesse, the Gleiberger Land belongs to the Rhein-Main transport association . The municipalities of Heuchelheim and Lahnau are connected to the city centers of Gießen and Wetzlar by a city bus line (line 24) on a regular schedule. From Biebertal there has also been a frequent public transport connection to Gießen for several years, often every hour. There are no appealing connections between Biebertal and Wettenberg or Biebertal and Lahnau. Wettenberg is also very well connected to Giessen with the city bus routes 801 (Launsbach, Wißmar) and 802 (Krofdorf-Gleiberg). Both lines run every 30 minutes during the day.
There used to be rail connections in Gleiberger Land. On the one hand, there was the Lollar – Wetzlar railway (section of the Kanonenbahn ), which ceased operations on May 30, 1980, and the Biebertalbahn (colloquially Bieberlies ), a narrow-gauge railway from Gießen to Biebertal, which was no longer in operation in 1954. The tracks have now been dismantled on both lines. The bus lines provide direct connections to the railway stations in Gießen and Wetzlar.
history
For centuries, several state borders stretched through the Gleiberger Land between Hessen-Nassau, Hessen-Darmstadt and the district of Wetzlar, which at times belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia. The state of Hesse was not formed until 1946. During this period up to the regional reform in the 1970s, all localities with the exception of the core community Heuchelheim belonged to the district of Wetzlar.
