Norath

Norath is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Emmelshausen, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationThe municipality lies in the eastern Hunsrück nestled within a greenbelt of woodland and meadowland, roughly 3 km southeast of Emmelshausen, right on Schinderhannes-Radweg (cycle path).NameNorath’s name comes from the old word rod, from the same stem as the German verb roden, meaning “clear (woods, trees)”. When early settlers began to move into the Hunsrück seeking new lands for living and raising crops, they at first settled at the place now known as Hungenroth, some 10 km west of Sankt Goar on the Hunsrück heights. After only a few years, though, it had become quite clear to the settlers that the soil there was too infertile and boggy. Even hard work never yielded harvests that were good enough to keep the settlers fed. This led them to call their new home Hungerrodung (“Hunger Clearing”). A further clearing only 3 km to the east, however, held greater promise of agricultural bounty. This became known as Neurodung (“New Clearing”). Over time, the pronunciation changed to “Norath”.