Weeze

Weeze is a municipality in the Lower Rhine (Niederrhein) region, in the northwestern part of North Rhine-Westphalia in the district of Kleve in the region of Düsseldorf.The municipality consists of the town of Weeze and the village of Wemb and has approximately 10,500 inhabitants. It is situated in the district of Kleve, embedded in the northwestern part of the Lower Rhine Region, and lies between Goch to the north and Kevelaer to the south. The Netherlands lie directly to the west.HistoryIndividual artefacts from the earliest settlement of the area date back to the early/middle Stone Age. In the following periods a burial site with 1,000 tumuli in the area of Kalbeck, settlement remains on the Hees, remnants of the Roman road between Cologne and Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a significant discovery of Roman silver coins have all been found on municipal soil. Franconian burial sites from around the 8th century have also been unearthed in the close vicinity of the town centre.Examples of Weeze's history are the restored Catholic church of St Cyriakus, excavations from the Stone and Bronze Ages, Wissen Castle complete with moat, Kalbeck Castle and the ruins of Hertefeld Castle.An area in and around today’s Weeze was first-mentioned in a document from King Lothar II in 855 when the King presented Count Ansfried with a piece of estate to the east of the River Niers, known as Villa Geizefurt and situated mainly in the farmstead area of Kalbeck.