Glan-Münchweiler
Glan-Münchweiler 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 Oberes Glantal; the municipality lies in a hollow in the Glan valley in the uplands in the Western Palatinate, with peaks such as the Galgenberg, the Klopfberg, the Eckertsberg and the Wingertsberg. On the Glan’s right bank, at the foot of the Hochwald lies the outlying centre of Bettenhausen; the bottom of the dale has an elevation of 215 m above sea level. The highest elevation within municipal limits lies in the Eichenwald at 388 m above sea level. Glan-Münchweiler lies 8 km southeast of Kusel and 25 km west of Kaiserslautern; the municipal area measures 464 ha, of which 112 ha is wooded. Glan-Münchweiler borders in the north on the municipality of Rehweiler, in the east on the municipality of Niedermohr, in the south on the municipality of Nanzdietschweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of Börsborn, in the west on the municipality of Henschtal and in the northwest on the municipality of Quirnbach.
Glan-Münchweiler's Ortsteile are Bettenhausen. On the terrace that juts out from the western slope into the Glan valley, monks from the Hornbach Monastery established an estate in the 8th century for clearing and farming the surrounding countryside; the village core that arose here with its estate and church was fortified on the downstream side in 1344, as witnessed by “civic building”. After the Thirty Years' War, Glan-Münchweiler’s built-up area spread westwards towards what is today Marktstraße. Ringstraße and Hauptstraße soon formed a residential quadrangle through which ran only one street from the village core, Kirchstraße. With the opening of the building zone in the cadastral area known as “Teich”, the built-up area began to spread northwards in 1953 towards the slopes of the Fronberg and Galgenberg, stopping only at the ridge in many places. With the graveyard’s expansion in 1970 Friedhofstraße and the area below were opened up; the Autobahn finished in 1970, touches Glan-Münchweiler just at the southwest hemming the village’s development in.
Only the sporting ground with its two football pitches and athletic complex could be laid out to the highway’s west. The supply road built for the Autobahn’s construction was developed after the Second World War and is now called Embachstraße; the forester’s house built in 1914 on the road leading out of Glan-Münchweiler towards Quirnbach served after the war as a kindergarten owned by the Catholic Church, although it is now under private ownership. At the turn of the millennium, Glan-Münchweiler had 358 houses; the village’s beginnings and first settlers lie in the time before the Christian Era. Archaeological finds of stone hatchets within Glan-Münchweiler’s limits bear witness to settlers in the New Stone Age; the barrow fields in the Eicherwald give clues as to a certain continuity in settlement in the Iron Age. Glan-Münchweiler lies at the crossroads of some old roads. Many finds from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD show. A trove of coins unearthed in 1976 in what is now the village core, along with further clues, point to a fire in 351 or 352.
After the Frankish takeover of the land, the Glan-Münchweiler area passed in about the middle of the 8th century through donation into Hornbach Abbey’s ownership. About this time, the Hornbach monks established an estate for clearing and farming the land, built a church, some remnants of which were found in today’s church’s foundations; the Hornbach Monastery pledged the “Münchweiler Tal” in the time that followed to the Raugraves of Neuenbaumburg and Altenbaumburg. Thus, secular lords became the fiefholders in this area. In 1383, the fief passed to the Lords of Breitenborn, shortly thereafter to the Burgmann family of Mauchenheim. Sir Georg von der Leyen wed Eva Mauchenheimer in 1468, thus beginning the long lordship of the Counts of Leyen in the “Münchweiler Tal”, which lasted until 1801. Glan-Münchweiler acquired the status of Unteramt together with the villages of Steinbach, Nanzweiler, Dietschweiler, Börsborn and Gries; the seat of the Oberamt was Blieskastel. The highest lord in the land remained, the Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, who exercised the blanket lordship over the Hornbach Monastery.
Over the centuries, this led to disputes over questions of authority. There were two Schultheißen, one appointed by the Counts of Leyen and the other by the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken; the first Schultheiß appointed by the Counts of Leyen in 1490 was named Andreas Stemmler, while the first one appointed by the Duchy was named Johann Jakob Röhrich. The ecclesiastical and social convulsions in the time of the Reformation brought new antagonisms and disputes into the “Münchweiler Tal”; the Dukes of Zweibrücken, as rightful successors to the Hornbach Monastery, were Reformed, whereas the Counts of Leyen had chosen to remain Catholic. Administration and use of landholds were forever a cause of feuding. During the Thirty Years' War, Glan-Münchweiler was destroyed and plundered by Croatian mercenaries. In 1621, Glan-Münchweiler was stricken with a frightful outbreak of the Plague, which claimed most of the lives in the village. Indeed, two villages in the “Münchweiler Tal” – Reichertsweiler and Fröschweiler – died right out in the epidemic.
The French Revolution brought the hitherto prevailing lordship arrangements to an end. Imperial Countess Marianne von der Leyen, during her flight before the French Revolu
North Sea
The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north, it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery; the sea is a popular destination for recreation and tourism in bordering countries and more has developed into a rich source of energy resources including fossil fuels and early efforts in wave power. The North Sea has featured prominently in geopolitical and military affairs in Northern Europe, it was important globally through the power northern Europeans projected worldwide during much of the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The North Sea was the centre of the Vikings' rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus access to the world's markets and resources.
As Germany's only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geographical features. In the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south, the coast consists of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the dense population, heavy industrialization, intense use of the sea and area surrounding it, there have been various environmental issues affecting the sea's ecosystems. Adverse environmental issues – including overfishing and agricultural runoff and dumping, among others – have led to a number of efforts to prevent degradation of the sea while still making use of its economic potential; the North Sea is bounded by the Orkney Islands and east coast of Great Britain to the west and the northern and central European mainland to the east and south, including Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and France. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean.
In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, connects with the Norwegian Sea, which lies in the north-eastern part of the Atlantic; the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland and the Frisian Islands; the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea, including water from the Baltic Sea; the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some industrialized areas.
For the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to an area north of Bergen, it has a maximum depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris, rises to a mere 15 to 30 m below the surface; this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms; these great banks and others make the North Sea hazardous to navigate, alleviated by the implementation of satellite navigation systems. The Devil's Hole lies 200 miles east of Scotland; the feature is a series of asymmetrical trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long and two kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Fisher Bank and Noordhinder Bank; the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows: On the Southwest.
A line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point. On the Northwest. From Dunnet Head in Scotland to Tor Ness in the Island of Hoy, thence through this island to the Kame of Hoy on to Breck Ness on Mainland through this island to Costa Head and to Inga Ness in Westray through Westray, to Bow Head, across to Mull Head and on to Seal Skerry and thence to Horse Island. On the North. From the North point of the Mainland of the Shetland Islands, across to Graveland Ness in the Island of Yell, through Yell to Gloup Ness and across to Spoo Ness in Unst island, through Unst to Herma Ness, on to the SW point of the Rumblings and to Muckle Flugga all these being included in the North Sea area.
Altenglan
Altenglan 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 Kusel-Altenglan. Altenglan is a recognized tourism community. Named after the municipality is the Altenglan Formation, a lithostratigraphic entity, by extension, so is Altenglanerpeton, a microsaur whose fossil remains were found therein; the municipality lies in the uplands in the Western Palatinate on the river Glan, the village's namesake, at an elevation in the valley of some 200 m above sea level, although the elevations within municipal limits reach 400 m, on the slopes of the Potzberg within the self-administering municipality of Mühlbach 500 m. Altenglan lies 5 km northeast of the district seat and nearest town, 25 km northwest of Kaiserslautern. In Altenglan, the Kuselbach and the Reichenbach empty into the Glan; the dale here forms a broad bowl, although the pattern is broken somewhat by the two streams that meet the Glan here, one from each side.
Part of the Potzberg massif lies within Altenglan as does part of the long Remigiusberg ridge, although these hills' summits all lie outside the municipality's boundaries. The municipality has an area of 1 362 ha. Altenglan borders in the north on the municipality of Bedesbach, in the northeast on the municipality of Welchweiler, in the east on the municipality of Bosenbach, in the southeast on the municipality of Föckelberg, in the south on the municipalities of Rutsweiler am Glan and Theisbergstegen, in the southwest on the municipality of Rammelsbach, in the west on the town of Kusel and the municipality of Blaubach and in the northwest on the municipality of Erdesbach. Altenglan meets the municipalities of Elzweiler and Haschbach am Remigiusberg at single points in the east and south respectively. Altenglan's Ortsteile are Mühlbach am Glan and Patersbach; the original settlement of Altenglan stretched along the higher parts of the left banks of both the Glan and the Kuselbach, along today's Glanstraße from the graveyard with the old church to the T-junction formed by today's Bahnhofstraße.
This can be seen in a stock book compiled in the mid-18th century. Other settlements on Bahnhofstraße had already arisen by the 18th century; the last house before the bridge was the one, now the rectory, across the bridge stood a smith's workshop. Standing by the 18th century were houses in the area of today's Ringstraße, which the stock book describes as a gemeiner Weg – “common way”. Thus, a big triangle stretching back from the forks of the Glan and Kuselbach was settled at the time when the original cadastral survey was done in 1848; the settlement began to spread out in the 19th century towards Eckstraße and Tränkstraße, towards Neuwiesenstraße and today's Schulstraße. In the early 20th century, houses were built on Kuseler Straße. Altenglan station was built in 1868 along with the railway line between Landstuhl. New, bigger residential areas arose after the Second World War west of Bahnhofstraße and to the side of Kuseler Straße. A new rectory was built in 1934 on Kuseler Straße; the town hall, in its original form, the municipality had built after the Second World War.
Expansions took place after the founding of the Verbandsgemeinde. Most of the shops, supermarkets and inns stand on the main street along with Austraße, on Glanstraße, while the school with its gymnasium and event hall and the Verbandsgemeinde administration building stand on Schulstraße. Adjoining the school is a sporting ground; the sport and leisure swimming pool lies east of the village off the main road going towards Bosenbach. The mediaeval church stands in the middle of the graveyard in the village's northeast at the end of Glanstraße and across Kuseler Straße; as a old village, Altenglan has a large municipal area, great swathes of which were opened up to development after the Second World War. The biggest tract of woodland is the Bruderwald, a typical mixed forest once owned by the Remigiusberg Monastery. Besides cropraising and livestock breeding, the municipality worked at winegrowing to a limited extent in the time before the Second World War; the Altenglan area was settled as early as the last period in the New Stone Age and on into Gallo-Roman times, bearing witness to which are archaeological finds.
Since the name Glan is of Celtic origin, it could be that the centre was settled continuously up to the Frankish takeover of the land. From Roman times, traces have been preserved, such as a sculpture of a woman, the so-called “Venus of Glan”, which has since disappeared; the name Gleni appears along with the name Cosla in the historical work from the Archbishopric of Reims compiled by the early mediaeval historical writer Flodoard. According to the greater Remigiustestament, included in this work, the so-called Remigiusland with Kusel and Altenglan had already been bequeathed by King Clovis to Saint Remigius as a donation; this forgery was made with the object of reinforcing the claim to Reims holdings in what is today the Western Palatinate through a reference to the famous bishop Remigius. It is likely that King Childebert II transferred the Remigiusland with the villages of Cosla and Gleni to Bishop Giles about 590. On these grounds, the municipality celebrated it
Lauterecken
Lauterecken is a town in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde Lauterecken-Wolfstein, to which it belongs. Lauterecken bears the nickname Veldenzstadt, it is a state-recognized tourism resort town, in terms of state planning is laid out as a lower centre. The town lies in the North Palatine Uplands in a hollow at the mouth of the Lauter, where it empties into the Glan, at the mouth of the Grumbach, which empties into the Glan. Lauterecken lies at an elevation of some 170 m above sea level. Elevations on each side of the dales reach some 300 m above sea level, with the highest elevation being found at the peak known as die Platt. Lauterecken is found 20 km northeast of Kusel, 25 km northwest of Kaiserslautern; the municipal area measures 893 ha. Lauterecken borders in the northeast on the municipality of Medard, in the east on the municipality of Cronenberg, in the southeast on the municipality of Hohenöllen, in the south on the municipality of Lohnweiler, in the southwest on the municipality of Wiesweiler, in the west on the municipalities of Hausweiler and Grumbach and in the northwest on the municipality of Kappeln and an exclave belonging to the municipality of Grumbach.
Yearly precipitation in Lauterecken amounts to 707 mm, which falls into the middle third of the precipitation chart for all Germany. Only at 41% of the German Weather Service's weather stations are lower figures recorded; the driest month is April. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is. Precipitation varies only and is spread evenly over the year. At none of the weather stations are lower seasonal swings recorded; the dense settlement in Lauterecken's inner town in a sloped location can be traced back to the mediaeval town fortifications, which stretched up the river Lauter southeastwards from its mouth. This old town centre was crossed by the thoroughfare known as the Obere Gasse with its marketplace, which today, together with its extensions bears the name Hauptstraße throughout the old town. Behind the marketplace stands the Evangelical church, which in its current form dates from 1865-1866, while near the former southeastern town gate, the Obertor stands the Catholic church, consecrated in 1853.
Further important buildings on Hauptstraße are the former bursary office from 1897 and the town hall from 1829. Parallel to Hauptstraße, running southwest to the Lauter, is Schlossgasse known as Untere Gasse, which leads from the Veldenzturm along the former town wall to the historic Rheingrafenbrücke; the beginning of this street marks the former palace area, which stretched on down to Hauptstraße. One important street, which branches off Hauptstraße near the Evangelical church in the old town towards the eastern slope, is Bergstraße. Still preserved on the lands of the former graveyard on the Igelskopf is the imposing warriors’ memorial. A new graveyard was laid out in the town's northeast; as early as the late 18th century, Lauterecken was growing beyond the area within the fortifications. In the southwest, the centre of Überlauterecken an independent municipality by the Middle Ages, was swallowed up into the spreading town; this Stadtteil could only be reached across the Rheingrafenbrücke, but nowadays it can be reached by way of a better street, Schillerstraße, across the Schillerbrücke.
Further expansions arose in the town's south end along Lauterstraße, a street that can be considered a southeastward extension of Hauptstraße, more new developments have taken in the area between Lauterstraße and the road that leads to Cronenberg. In the north end, off Hauptstraße, Herrenstraße and Schulstraße were built. Standing on the latter are the former Amt courthouse and, of course, the old schoolhouse, which nowadays houses a school for children with learning difficulties. In this part of Lauterecken, somewhat off to the side of this street, the modern Verbandsgemeinde administration building was built sometime after 1970. Farther on towards the mountain, stretching in a loose pattern, is a major housing development. To the north, Hauptstraße meets Saarbrücker Straße beyond the railway line. Known as Bundesstraße 420, this is a busy highway. Before Hauptstraße meets this road, Bahnhofstraße branches off northeastwards to the post office and, of course, the railway station, from which trains run into the Lauter valley towards Kaiserslautern, which serves as a station on the former Glantalbahn now used recreationally by draisine riders.
A great new building zone arose after 1945 in the part of town called “Auf Röth” between Bundesstraße 420 and Bundesstraße 270, which leads towards Grumbach. Built here was a new school centre with a primary school, a Hauptschule and a Gymnasium. Commercial-industrial operations in Lauterecken are concentrated in the town's north end on Bundesstraße 420. In prehistoric times, mankind was making its presence felt in the lands around what is now the town of Lauterecken as long ago as 5000 BC, leaving its traces in the form of extensive archaeological finds. Artefacts unearthed locally that come from the New Stone Age include a hatchet made of black stone found in the Wälderbusch in 1932, a flint arrowhead from Taubhauser Weg, where an adze was unearthed, a fragment of a
Bad Sobernheim
Bad Sobernheim is a town in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the like-named Verbandsgemeinde, is its seat, it is a state-recognized spa town, is well known for two fossil discovery sites and for the naturopath Emanuel Felke. Bad Sobernheim is a winegrowing town. Bad Sobernheim lies on the middle Nahe about halfway between the district seat of Bad Kreuznach and the gemstone town of Idar-Oberstein. Looming to the north is the Hunsrück, to the south, the North Palatine Uplands; the municipal area stretches as far as the Soonwald. One notable feature of Bad Sobernheim's municipal area is that it is split geographically into two non-contiguous pieces; the part to the southeast containing the main town holds most of the population, whereas the part to the northwest is only thinly populated, but makes up more than half the town's area. This came about as a result of the former Bundeswehr airfield in what is now the northwest part of the town. A great number of the people there chose to move house to Bad Sobernheim to escape the continual noise from aircraft, the town annexed the land where they had lived, up on the Nahe Heights.
Since the residents of Nußbaum did not give their village up, Bad Sobernheim now has a great swathe of land to the northwest of its original municipal area, separated from it by Nußbaum's municipal area. Clockwise from the north, Bad Sobernheim's neighbours are the municipalities of Waldböckelheim, Staudernheim, Lauschied, Meddersheim and Nußbaum. Bad Sobernheim holds an outlying swathe of territory, not contiguous with the piece containing the actual town – Nußbaum lies between the two areas – and greater in area, although thinly populated, its neighbours, again clockwise from the north, are the municipalities of Sargenroth, Ippenschied, Daubach, Nußbaum, Auen, Seesbach, Weitersborn and Mengerschied, the first and last of these both lying in the neighbouring Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis. Bad Sobernheim's only outlying Stadtteil is lying north-northeast of the main centre. Belonging to Bad Sobernheim, are a number of other outlying centres; some of these lie within the same patch of municipal territory as the main town, namely Dörndich, north-northwest of the main centre, Freilichtmuseum, Kurhaus am Maasberg and Neues Leben.
Dörndich was once a Bundeswehr facility with barracks. Today the area is used by private citizens. Other centres are to be found in the municipal exclave lying to the northwest: Eckweiler, Entenpfuhl mit Martinshof, Forsthaus Alteburg, Forsthaus Ippenschied, Hoxmühle, Kallweiler and Trifthütte; this piece of land was once two former municipalities’ municipal areas. They were the municipalities of Pferdsfeld. A mild, bracing climate, many sunny days, a long autumn and a mild winter all contribute to the area's being one of Southwest Germany's sunniest regions. In the New Stone Age and during the time of the Hunsrück-Eifel Culture, the Bad Sobernheim area was settled, as it was in Roman times. Beginning about AD 450, the Franks set up a new settlement here. However, only in 1074 was this "villa" of Suberenheim first mentioned in a document, one made out to Ravengiersburg Abbey; the Sobernheim dwellers were farmers and craftsmen, into modern times they earned their livelihoods at agriculture and winegrowing.
Businesses and trades existed, but they were linked with farming. Several monastic orders held landholds in the town. Furthermore, several noble families were resident, such as the Counts of Sponheim, the Raugraves and the Knights of Steinkallenfels. Administration was led by an archiepiscopal Schultheiß, who by 1269 at the latest had three Schöffen at his side, they formed the first town court. In 1259, Sobernheim was split away from Disibodenberg. Sobernheim was from the Early Middle Ages a centre among the estates held by the Archbishopric of Mainz on both the Nahe and the Glan, it was subject to the vice-lord of the Rheingau. The archbishop transferred Saint Matthew's Church to the monks at Disibodenberg; the Romanesque-Early Gothic building was newly renovated in the 19th century. The town was granted town rights on the Frankfurt model in 1292 by King Adolf of Nassau and again in 1324 by Emperor Louis the Bavarian, it was, the town rights on the Bingen model granted by Archbishop Baldwin of Trier in 1330 that became operative and remained so until the French Revolutionary Wars.
Until 1259, Sobernheim was administered by Disibodenberg, thereafter until 1471 by the Burgraves of Böckelheim. In the Nine Years' War, the fortifications and most of the town's buildings were destroyed by the French. Named in 1403, besides the archiepiscopal Schultheiß, were a mayor and 14 Schöffen drawn from among the townsmen. At that time, there were Jews living here, who worked at trading. A stone bridge spanned the Nahe beginning sometime between 1423 and 1426, but after a flood shifted the riverbed towards the south in 1627, it sat high and dry in the meadows and was only replaced with the current bridge in 1867-1868. In 1471, Elector Palatine Friedrich I's conquests for Electoral Palatinate included Sobernheim, ending Burgravial rule. Two great fires laid the whole town waste in 1567 and 1689; the oldest part of the town hall (
Rhine
The Rhine is one of the major European rivers, which has its sources in Switzerland and flows in an northerly direction through Germany and The Netherlands to the North Sea. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German and the Franco-German border flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands and empties into the North Sea; the largest city on the Rhine is Cologne, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s; the Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. Its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire is supported by the many castles and fortifications built along it. In the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism.
Among the biggest and most important cities on the Rhine are Cologne, Düsseldorf, Rotterdam and Basel. The variants of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, adapted in Roman-era geography as Greek Ῥῆνος, Latin Rhenus; the spelling with Rh- in English Rhine as well as in German Rhein and French Rhin is due to the influence of Greek orthography, while the vocalisation -i- is due to the Proto-Germanic adoption of the Gaulish name as *Rīnaz, via Old Frankish giving Old English Rín,Old High German Rīn, early Middle Dutch Rijn. The diphthong in modern German Rhein is a Central German development of the early modern period, the Alemannic name Rī retaining the older vocalism, as does Ripuarian Rhing, while Palatine has diphthongized Rhei, Rhoi. Spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-; the Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- "to move, run" found in other names such as the Reno in Italy.
The grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, the name remains masculine in German and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as feminine; the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in "Rhine-kilometers", a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river is shortened from its natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century; the "total length of the Rhine", to the inclusion of Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine is more difficult to measure objectively. Its course is conventionally divided as follows: The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein and Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein next to Reichenau in Tamins. Above this point is the extensive catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine, it belongs exclusively to the Swiss canton of Graubünden, ranging from Saint-Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino and Italy in the south to the Flüela Pass in the east.
Traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Anterior Rhine and the Rhine as a whole. The Posterior Rhine rises in the Rheinwald below the Rheinwaldhorn; the source of the river is considered north of Lai da Tuma/Tomasee on Rein Anteriur/Vorderrhein, although its southern tributary Rein da Medel is longer before its confluence with the Anterior Rhine near Disentis. The Anterior Rhine springs from Lai da Tuma/Tomasee, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide; the Posterior Rhine starts near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory. After three main valleys separated by the two gorges and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau in Tamins; the Anterior Rhine arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva and flows in an easterly direction. One source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it.
Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Rein da Medel, the Rein da Maighels, the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, which crosses the geomorphologic Alpine main ridge from the south. All streams in the source area are sometimes captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants; the culminating point of the Anterior Rhine's drainage basin is the Piz Russein of the Tödi massif of the Glarus Alps at 3,613 metres above sea level. It starts with the creek Aua da Russein. In its lower course the Anterior Rhine flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta; the whole stretch of the Anterior Rhine to the Alpine Rhine confluence next to Reichen
