Hochborn

Hochborn is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.This Ortsgemeinde earned a Germany-wide media presence in early 2001 when a television spot from the 1970s made by the then Südwestfunk was broadcast by Stefan Raab on his show TV total; it was about the place called Blödesheim. Stefan Raab then visited Hochborn during Carnival and for a few weeks thereafter campaigned for a return to the name Blödesheim.Blödes Heim in German means "dimwitted home".GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in Rhenish Hesse and has roughly 500 inhabitants. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wonnegau, whose seat is in Osthofen.At 290 m above sea level, Hochborn is among the highest places in the Rheinhessisches Hügelland (Rhenish-Hessian Uplands). Even so, the municipality nevertheless has a wealth of water, which might account for the choice of the new name: the placename ending —born is a form of the German word Brunnen, which can mean "spring", "fountain" or "well". The word hoch means "high".ClimateYearly precipitation in Hochborn amounts to 541 mm, which is very low, falling into the lowest tenth of the precipitation chart for all Germany. Only at 9% of the German Weather Service’s weather stations are even lower figures recorded. The driest month is February. The most rainfall comes in July. In that month, precipitation is 1.9 times what it is in February. Precipitation varies moderately. At 34% of the weather stations, lower seasonal swings are recorded.