Kellerwald

The Kellerwald is a low mountain range reaching heights of up to 675 m in the western part of northern Hesse, Germany. Its assets include Germany's largest contiguous beech woodland and it contains Hesse's only national park, the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.GeographyThe Kellerwald lies in northern Hesse in the district Schwalm-Eder. Abutting the e northeast, the Kellerwald's heights slope down into the Eder Valley, and towards the east and southeast they fall off into the Schwalm Valley. In the southwest, the range goes by way of the Wohra Valley into the Burgwald range and in the west, beyond the river Eder, lies the Breite Struth (a range of hills).Within the Kellerwald are the Ederhöhen (the "Eder Heights", a mountainous region in the range's north), whose area roughly coincides with the aforesaid national park, the Wildunger Bergland ("Wildungen Highlands"), which makes up the middle part of the Kellerwald, and the Keller (also known as the Hoher Keller or the Hoher Kellerwald, a mountain ridge in the south of the Kellerwald) made up of, from southwest to northeast, Jeust (585 m above sea level), Wüstegarten (675 m), Hunsrück (636 m) and Sauklippe (584 m).HistoryGeologyGeologically the Kellerwald, made up mainly of palaeozoic rocks, belongs to the Rhenish Slate Mountains. Scenically, however, it is also grouped as a separate entity with the Hessian Basin, because the rivers Eder and Itter form a natural boundary. Important minerals are the so-called Kellerwald quartzite, radiolarian rock, shale, greywacke and diabase. A regional peculiarity is the dark red Kellerwald agate, an Eisenkiesel, a "quartz that is turned opaque red with hematite inclusions".