County (Rhineland)

coat of arms	Germany map
	Coordinates: 50 ° 34 '  N , 7 ° 6'  E
Basic data
State :	Rhineland-Palatinate
County :	Ahrweiler
Height :	220 m above sea level NHN
Area :	57.55 km 2
Residents:	10,977 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density :	191 inhabitants per km 2
Postal code :	53501
Primaries :	02641, 02225 ( Eckendorf , Gelsdorf )
License plate :	AW
Community key :	07 1 31 090
Address of the municipal administration:	Ahrtalstrasse 5 53501 Grafschaft
Website :	www.gemeinde-grafschaft.de
Mayor :	Achim Juchem ( CDU )
Location of the municipality Grafschaft in the district of Ahrweiler

The county is an association-free municipality in the district of Ahrweiler in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate , directly on the state border with North Rhine-Westphalia . The community was created in 1974 after the Rhineland-Palatinate municipal reform from the majority of the former community of Ringen . Ringen is the seat of the municipality. In regional parlance, it is often called "the county". County is designated as a base center according to state planning .

geography

Geographical location

The municipality of Grafschaft is located north of the district town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler , about 15 kilometers southwest of the federal city of Bonn . The 57.55 square kilometer municipal area is located on the edge of the Voreifel in the east of the Eifel , at the transition to the Middle Rhine Valley . The western part of the area rises into the Ahr Mountains , is predominantly forested and is traversed by numerous streams such as the Swist . To the east of the plateau is the Grafschafter Lösshügelland and further northeast the Oberwinterer terrace and hill country . To the south and southwest, the municipality extends to the edge of the Ahr valley , which is called the Kerbtal up to a height of 345  m above sea level. NHN is enough.

Community structure

The municipality is divided into eleven local districts, including 16 localities and numerous individual farms. The districts correspond to the municipalities of the Verbandsgemeinde Ringen, which were dissolved in 1974.

District	Resident October 30, 2013
Bengen	512
Birresdorf	931
Eckendorf	395
Gelsdorf	1,404
Holzweiler (with Alteheck and Esch )	1,370
Karweiler	634
Lantershofen	1,434
Leimersdorf (with Niederich and Oeverich )	1,222
Kidney village	836
Wrestling (with Beller and Bölingen )	1.925
Vettelhoven	519

Neighboring communities

The county borders the following municipalities (clockwise, starting in the north): Wachtberg ( North Rhine-Westphalia ), Remagen , Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler , Dernau , Altenahr , Kalenborn (all Rhineland-Palatinate ) and Meckenheim (North Rhine-Westphalia).

history

The historical forerunner and namesake of the community is the county of Neuenahr , which was established in the 13th century and is based at Neuenahr Castle . In addition to today's districts of Bad Neuenahr and parts of the area near Rheinbach, this also included most of the localities in today's Grafschaft municipality. After the dynasty of the Count von Neuenahr had died out around 1352, there were inheritance disputes and, as a result, sometimes chaotic conditions with robbery and murder. In 1372, the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich III. von Saar Werden , by conquering and destroying Neuenahr Castle. For the next 200 years this area was under the rule of two feudal lords of the Archdiocese of Cologne until it returned to the Duchy of Jülich in 1546 . Under the duchy, the Neuenahr office was established in the area, and it has been reduced in size over time. Gelsdorf's exit in 1382 - still in the county of Neuenahr - marked the beginning of the loss of territory. However, Gelsdorf fell back to the Neuenahr office in 1558 and finally became a free empire in 1737 . As part of an exchange deal, Eckendorf, Adendorf and Villip ceased to exist in 1659 and formed two imperial lords. At the end of the 18th century, other rulers in today's municipal area were Nierendorf, Lantershofen and Vettelhoven. With the Neuenahr office there were five independent states in what is now the county of Grafschaft.

Half-timbered house from the 18th century in Gelsdorf

Vettelhoven Castle, aerial photo (2015)

Vettelhoven, aerial photo (2015)

With the entry of French troops after the French Revolution in 1794, a completely new administrative structure came along. All of the existing rulers were dissolved and instead a new division into Mairien was chosen, the basic features of which are still in place today. After the victory of the German troops over the French and the subsequent Congress of Vienna , the territorial situation changed again. The Mairien were renamed mayor's offices and the mayor's offices of Heimersheim and Ringen, which arose under French rule, were dissolved in 1818 and parts of the Gelsdorf mayor's office added, which was also expanded to include the municipality of Kalenborn. After 1818, the population of the mayor's office in Gelsdorf had grown significantly from 3700 to 4907 in 1846, but then stagnated for several years. When the mayor at the time moved from Gelsdorf to Ringen, the administrative headquarters of the mayor's office also moved to Ringen. A new administration building was opened there on March 19, 1884. The name change from Gelsdorf to Ringen only came into effect on March 2, 1936. The renamed office received a coat of arms a year later.

At the end of the 1960s, a nationwide local government reform was carried out, which resulted in numerous new parishes and the formation of association parishes . The Office rings in 1968, first in the municipality rings transferred. According to the law on municipal reform, a minimum size of 7500 inhabitants was required for association communities, but the association municipality Ringen only had 6742 inhabitants on December 31, 1969. The state government therefore planned to incorporate the association area into the city of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler on January 1, 1971, with the exception of the municipality of Kalenborn. This plan was overwhelmingly welcomed by the municipalities of the Ringen association, but was rejected by the Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler city council, including the argument that Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler and the area of ​​the association should have different structures. After years of discussion and the fear of a division of the historic county area, the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament finally passed a law in 1973 that provided for the formation of a community -free community from the former communities of the community of Ringen, with the exception of Kalenborn, which should be added to the community of Altenahr . With the entry into force of the law on March 16, 1974, the new municipality Grafschaft was created, which at that time comprised 6,075 inhabitants.

Since the community was formed in 1974, the population has increased from around 6,000 to around 11,000 today. The favorable location between the main workplaces of Bonn in the north and Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in the south contributed to this. The population development is within the general development of the Bonn region.

Population development

The development of the population of the county in relation to today's municipal area; the values ​​from 1871 to 1987 are based on censuses:

year Residents 1815 3,502 1835 4,582 1871 4,525 1905 4,388 1939 4,448 1950 5,193 1961 5,422

year Residents 1970 5,916 1987 7,406 1997 10,641 2005 11,169 2011 10,761 2017 10,914

Population development of the county from 1815 to 2017 according to the adjacent table

politics

City council election 2019

Weighted result

 %

50

40

30th

20th

10

0

19.1

40.5

6.4

15.4

18.7

n. k.

SPD

CDU

FDP

Green

FWG

WGK

Gains and losses

compared to 2014

 % p

   8th

   6th

   4th

   2

   0

  -2

  -4

  -6

-3.8

-6.0

+1.7

+7.2

+4.1

-3.1

SPD

CDU

FDP

Green

FWG

WGK

The local council in the county consists of 28 honorary council members, who in the local elections on May 26, 2019 in a personalized proportional representation were elected, and the full-time mayor as chairman.

The distribution of seats in the municipal council:

choice	SPD	CDU	FDP	GREEN	FWG	WGK	total
2019	5	12	2	4th	5	-	28 seats
2014	7th	13	1	2	4th	1	28 seats
2009	5	13	4th	2	4th	-	28 seats
2004	6th	14th	2	1	5	-	28 seats

• FWG = Free Voting Community Grafschaft e. V.
• WGK = small voter group

Each of the eleven local districts has its own mayor and its own local council .

Due to the peculiarities of the Rhineland-Palatinate electoral system in local elections ( personalized proportional representation ), the percentage of votes shown in the graphic are shown as “weighted results” that can only represent the voting behavior arithmetically.

mayor

On May 6, 2012, Achim Juchem (CDU) was confirmed in this office for a further eight years without an opponent with a result of 91.6 percent yes-votes by direct election. His second term began on March 1, 2013 and ends on January 31, 2021.

coat of arms

Blazon : "The coat of arms shows in the divided shield above in gold a growing black lion armed in red, below in black three gold rings."

Reasons for the coat of arms: The head of the shield is borrowed from the coat of arms of the dukes of Jülich , who wore a black, red-armored lion in gold. In the Holy Roman Empire, the dukes of Jülich were the rulers of most of today's county of Grafschaft. The base of the shield stands for the name of the office (later Verbandsgemeinde ) rings. The coat of arms has been legally valid since July 28, 1937, when it was awarded to the Ringen office by the President of the Rhine Province .

See also : List of coats of arms with the Jülich lion

Community partnerships

Grafschaft has had a parish partnership with the French Fauville-en-Caux in Normandy since 1980 .

Economy and Infrastructure

economy

Grafschaft is today a municipality characterized by agriculture and its location as a residential location between the main workplaces in the north (Bonn) and south (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler). Due to the geographical and traffic-wise favorable location, some industrial companies have settled in the municipality. The Grafschaft-Gelsdorf business park near the A 61 and A 565 motorways today covers an area of ​​45 hectares, on which 1700 jobs have been created. Near the village of rings was funded by Berlin / Bonn Act of Innovation Park Rhineland created. After this commercial space had developed only very slowly at first, changes in the marketing strategy resulted in increasing success in settling in the area.

The confectionery manufacturer Haribo has had its headquarters in the Grafschafter district of Ringen since May 2018 .

From 2000 until its dissolution in 2007, the Gelsdorf district was the headquarters of the Bundeswehr Intelligence Center (ZNBw), which was housed there in a modern new building costing around 100 million euros. Since 2008 Gelsdorf has been the location of the Strategic Reconnaissance Command . The barracks were given the name Philipp-Freiherr-von-Boeselager -barracks on October 7, 2009 .

County, industrial park near Ringen, aerial photo (2015)

Despite its name, the supraregional known Grafschafter Krautfabrik is not in the municipality of Grafschaft, but in neighboring Meckenheim .

Transport links

Karweiler Viaduct (A 573) and in the background the Bengen Viaduct (A 61)

The municipality is crossed in a north-west-south-east direction by the federal motorway 61 Cologne - Ludwigshafen am Rhein . The federal motorway 573 branches off from the A 61 in the east of the municipality near the village of Beller and represents the feeder to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in the south . Furthermore, the federal motorway 565 Bonn-Meckenheim- Altenahr goes near the Meckenheimer Kreuz (junction A 61 / A 565) after the exit Gelsdorf into the federal road 257 .

The nearest train stations are in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler ( Ahrtalbahn ), Meckenheim (Bz Köln) ( Voreifelbahn ) and Remagen ( left Rhine route ). The individual districts of Grafschaft are connected to each other and to Bad Neuenahr, Ahrweiler, Meckenheim, Rheinbach and Remagen in the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel (VRM) relatively wide-meshed by bus lines, mainly as part of school traffic . In times of low demand and on weekends, taxi buses sometimes run . On some lines there is then no traffic at all. Like the Ahrweiler district, Grafschaft is part of the tariff area of ​​the Rhein-Sieg transport association (VRS).

See also

• List of cultural monuments in the county

The Frankensiedlung Nithrindorp is located between Nierendorf and Birresdorf , a building project to reconstruct an early medieval Frankish settlement.

Community personalities

• Mathias Joseph Prior (1870–1946), Catholic theologian, builder of the Saardome in Dillingen / Saar

Web links

Commons : county  collection of images

• County county website
• "About the county and its history"
• Rhineland Innovation Park
• Parish community county
• When Cheops greeted the county , accessed March 18, 2014.
• Village renewal in the county county. Lantershofen village renewal concept. August 2008 from gemeinde-grafschaft.de, accessed on July 19, 2018
• Naturschutz-Grafschaft.de , accessed on May 21, 2019
• Literature about county in the Rhineland-Palatinate state bibliography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate - population status 2019, districts, communities, association communities ( help on this ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate - regional data
3. ^ Official homepage of Vettelhoven.
4. ↑ Official municipality directory 2006 ( Memento from December 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (= State Statistical Office Rhineland-Palatinate [Hrsg.]: Statistical volumes . Volume 393 ). Bad Ems March 2006, p. 177 and 178 (PDF; 2.6 MB). Info: An up-to-date directory ( 2016 ) is available, but in the section "Territorial changes - Territorial administrative reform" it does not give any population figures.  
5. ↑ The Regional Returning Officer RLP: City Council Election 2019 Grafschaft. Retrieved August 11, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Municipality Grafschaft: Election results 2014. Accessed August 11, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Explanation by the Land Returning Officer on the "Weighted Result"
8. ↑ HARIBO purchases land in the county of Grafschaft. In: haribo.com. Haribo , June 26, 2014, accessed August 3, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Moving the gummy bears. Haribo moves company headquarters. In: faz.net . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), July 2, 2014, accessed on July 4, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Haribo has relocated its headquarters. Bonn is no longer the gold bear capital. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. May 3, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
11. ^ Daniel Phillipp Tolksdorf: Jung gives Bundeswehr property a new name. Bundeswehr, October 8, 2009, archived from the original on October 11, 2009 ; accessed on March 15, 2014 . 
12. ↑ nithrindorp.de