Gehlweiler

Gehlweiler
Coat of arms
Gehlweiler
Location of Gehlweiler within Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis district
Coordinates: 49°53′0″N 7°27′58″E / 49.88333°N 7.46611°E / 49.88333; 7.46611Coordinates: 49°53′0″N 7°27′58″E / 49.88333°N 7.46611°E / 49.88333; 7.46611
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis
Municipal assoc.	Kirchberg
Government
• Mayor	Kurt Aßmann
Area
• Total	4.50 km2 (1.74 sq mi)
Elevation	290 m (950 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	236
• Density	52/km2 (140/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	55490
Dialling codes	06765
Vehicle registration	SIM
Website	www.gehlweiler.de

Gehlweiler is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirchberg, whose seat is in the like-named town.

The municipality lies on the western slope of the Soonwald, a heavily wooded section of the west-central Hunsrück. Through the village flows the Kellenbach, on whose other side lies the Lützelsoon plateau. Gehlweiler’s population is 254 and its area is 450 ha, of which 249 ha is wooded.

Gehlweiler’s history goes back to the 9th and 10th centuries, with the first descriptive mention being found in the Urkunden zur Willigskirche bei Auen (“Documents at Saint Willigis’s Church near Auen”) from the Church’s Sobernheim rural chapter. Its history is also tightly bound with the former Castle Koppenstein. This castle was under the ownership of the formerly powerful Sponheim dynasty, and as the outlying village, Gehlweiler belonged to the “Koppenstein”, and was thereby itself a Sponheim holding. In 1317, Gehlweiler had its first documentary mention as Gelwilre.

Until 1575, Gehlweiler was assigned to the parish of Getzbach (nowadays Seesbach) and thereafter belonged to the area of the Amt of Gemünden. In 1707, Gehlweiler passed into Baden’s ownership, without bringing about any appreciable change in the villagers’ lives, however.

Beginning in 1794, Gehlweiler lay under French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Furthermore, since 1970, the Ortsgemeinde of Gehlweiler has lain under the authority of the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirchberg, which was put together in that year in the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate from 40 municipalities from the former Ämter of Büchenbeuren, Gemünden and Kirchberg along with two Ortsgemeinden from the Amt of Rhaunen, and eventually also the town of Kirchberg, which had originally not been part of any Verbandsgemeinde.