Annweiler am Trifels, or Annweiler is a town in the Südliche Weinstraße

Südliche Weinstraße

Südliche Weinstraße is a district in the south of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Südwestpfalz, Bad Dürkheim, the district-free city Neustadt , Rhein-Pfalz-Kreis, Germersheim, and the French département Bas-Rhin...

 district, in Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is situated on the river Queich

Queich

The Queich is a tributary of the Rhine, which rises in the southern part of the Palatinate Forest, and flows through the Upper Rhine valley to its confluence with the Rhine in Germersheim. It is 52 km long and is one of the four major drainage systems of the Palatinate Forest along with the...

, 12 km west of Landau

Landau

Landau or Landau in der Pfalz is an autonomous city surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town , a long-standing cultural centre, and a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the...

, and on the railway from Landau to Pirmasens

Pirmasens

Pirmasens is a district-free city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France. It is famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called Pirmasens from 1818 until 1997, when it was renamed Südwestpfalz....

.

Annweiler is situated in the Southern part of the Palatinate forest called the Wasgau, and is surrounded by high hills which yield a famous red sandstone. On the Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg is a municipality in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg, Germany....

 (493 m) lie the ruins of the castle of Trifels, in which Richard Coeur de Leon

Richard I of England

Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...

 was imprisoned in 1193. Its main industry is tourism.

Annweiler is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde

Verbandsgemeinde

A Verbandsgemeinde is an administrative unit in the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.-Rhineland-Palatinate:...

("collective municipality") of Annweiler am Trifels

Annweiler am Trifels (Verbandsgemeinde)

Annweiler am Trifels is a Verbandsgemeinde in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany...

.

In an 1911 edition of the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie

Brockhaus Enzyklopädie

The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie is a German-language encyclopedia published by Brockhaus.The first edition originated in the Conversations-Lexikon mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf die gegenwärtigen Zeiten by Renatus Gotthelf Löbel and Christian Wilhelm Franke, published in Leipzig 1796-1808...

, the area around Annweiler was referred to as "Pfälzer Schweiz".

Mayors

• Christian Sieben (1815–1832)
• Heinrich Pasquay (1832–1833)
• Abraham Noe (1833–1835)
• Heinrich Mühlhäuser (1837–1848)
• Wilhelm Köstner (1848–1851)
• Matthäus Künkele (1852)
• Georg Jacoby (1853–1858)
• Philipp Streccius (1871–1874)
• Karl Culmann (1875–1877)
• Georg Jacoby (1877–1885)
• August Pasquay (1885–1899)
• Philipp Daniel Bartz (1900–1913)
• Jean Meyer (1913–1918)
• Philipp Mergenthaler (1918–1919)
• Adolf Hoffmann (1920–1921)
• Heinrich Gotthold (1921)
• Konrad Bretz (1921–1928)
• Friedrich Orth (1928–1933)
• Karl Becker (1933)
• Richard Bärsch (1933–1935)
• Friedrich Peters (1935–1940)
• Richard Bärsch (1940–1945)
• Eduard Diehlmann (1945–1946)
• Friedrich Hofäcker (1946–1956)
• Theo Leyendecker (1956–1969)
• Hans Stöcklein (1969–1987)
• Peter Weber (1987–1994)
• Gert Rillmann (1994–2004)
• Thomas Wollenweber (2004 - )

Notable residents

• Markward von Annweiler
  Markward von Annweiler
  Markward von Annweiler was Imperial Seneschal and Regent of the Kingdom of Sicily.-Biography:Markward was a ministerialis, that is, he came not from the free nobility, but from a class of unfree knights and administrators whose purpose was to serve loyally the Imperial administration in any capacity...
  
   (1140–1202)
• Horst Christill
• Matthias Kern (1750–1793) Journalist
• Eugen Jäger (1842–1926) Publicist
• August Naegle (1869–1932) Church Historian, Politician
• Hans-Ulrich Pfaffmann Politician
• Jutta Kleinschmidt
  Jutta Kleinschmidt
  Jutta Kleinschmidt is a competitor of offroad automotive racing events. She is known for her numerous showings in the Paris Dakar Rally, and notably for having won the event in 2001, becoming the first woman to win the race....
  
    Auto Racing Driver
• Gustav Franz Ullrich Industrialist
• Friedrich Gerhard Wahl Engineer and Architect (1748–1826)

International relations

Annweiler am Trifels is twinned with: Ambert

Ambert

-Places of interest:Ambert is famous for its fourme-d'Ambert cheese, its paper mills and its circular town hall ....

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Gorgonzola

Gorgonzola

Gorgonzola is a comune in the province of Milan, part of Lombardy, northern Italy. Once a rural community, and famous for the cheese which bears its name, today it forms part of the Milanese conurbation and has three stops on the Milan Metro.- History :...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...