Niederalben

Niederalben 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 Altenglan, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in the Steinalb valley in the Western Palatinate. The municipal area is 72.7% wooded. Niederalben lies at an elevation of between 180 and 250 m above sea level on the Steinalb’s left bank. This brook empties into the Glan only a few hundred metres downstream from the village. Running alongside the brook is a village bypass. The streets within the village itself sprout off the original through road that the bypass has now replaced and lead into the little side dales. Elevations outside the village reach heights of greater than 400 m above sea level. Among the more noteworthy of these is the Mittagsfels, with its craggy steep slopes looming over the built-up area. The Glan and Steinalb valleys are rather narrow, and on either side, a broad plateau spreads out. Two thirds of the former municipal area (before 1938) today lies within the Baumholder Troop Drilling Ground, a military facility created by the Nazis.