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The Palatinate Forest (, ), sometimes also called the Palatine Forest, is a low-mountain region in southwestern Germany, located in the Palatinate in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The forest is a designated nature park () covering 1,771 km and its highest elevation is the Kalmit (673 m).
In the southern Palatine Forest, the German part of the Wasgau, the Palatine Watershed begins on the French border in the area of the Erlenkopf hill (473 m above NHN), where it is a continuation of the watershed in the northern Vosges. Always generally running from southwest to northeast it initially heads eastwards past Eppenbrunn and Pirmasens over the Großer Schiffelskopf () and reaches the region of Gräfenstein Land. From there it runs up the Hortenkopf () in the central Frankenweide. Several kilometres it passes through the hamlet of Johanniskreuz (), one of the highest settlements in the Palatine Forest. The watershed then reaches the area west of Waldleiningen in the Lower Frankenweide.
On 20 July 1982 the Palatinate Forest Nature Park Association ("Verein Naturpark Pfälzerwald") was founded as a support organization. The members of the association are those counties and independent towns whose territories are covered by the nature park as well as the Palatinate regional association, various rambling and sports clubs and environmental organizations. Many social organisations are involved in the work of the nature park, ensuring the independence of academic and regional individual interests. The association's goal is to develop the nature park and its eponymous biosphere reserve equally and to maintain its uniqueness and beauty as well as its national recreational value. Since 1997, the head office of the association has been in Lambrecht.
Rhineland-Palatinate was established in 1946 after World War II from territory of the historically separate regions of the Free State of Prussia, People's State of Hesse, and Bavaria, by the French military administration in Allied-occupied Germany. Rhineland-Palatinate became part of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, and shared the country's only border with the Saar Protectorate until it was returned to German control in 1957. Rhineland-Palatinate has since developed its own identity built on its natural and cultural heritage, including the extensive Palatinate winegrowing region, its picturesque landscapes, and many castles and palaces.
The Black Forest Trail is a loop trail in Pennsylvania's Tiadaghton State Forest in parts of Lycoming, Potter, and Clinton Counties. A number of other forest roads, hiking, and cross country ski trails cross the Black Forest Trail making it possible to do shorter loops for day hikes or shorter backpacking trips. The Black Forest Trail is known for its steep ascents and descents and views of the Pine Creek Gorge and other canyons to the west.
After the Second World War the Palatinate Lion re-emerged as the regional symbol of the Palatinate, for example, on postage stamps in the French Zone of Occupation. Following the creation of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946, to which the Palatinate belonged, the Palatine Lion occupied a central place in the state coat of arms of Rhineland-Palatinate. The other elements of the Rhineland-Palatine coat of arms are the Wheel of Mainz ("Mainzer Rad") and the Cross of Trier ("Trierer Kreuz"). Even the semi-official coat of arms of the Province of Palatinate, which existed from 1946 to 1968 and dated to the 19th century, bore the Palatine Lion, which after the inclusion of the former territories of Electoral Mainz and Electoral Trier, symbolised the region of the present-day Palatinate.
The Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (which, from a natural region perspective, also includes the low chain of foothills); in the east it transitions to the , and hill country west of the . The Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands and much of it is densely wooded, a fragment of the Hercynian Forest of Antiquity. It lies upon rocks of the crystalline basement and Bunter Sandstone, and its natural boundary with the surrounding landscapes is formed by the emergence of , which is absent from the Black Forest bedrock. Thanks to the fertility of the soil which is dependent on the underlying rock, this line is both a vegetation boundary as well as the border between the ("old settlement land") and the Black Forest, which was not permanently settled until the High Middle Ages. From north to south the Black Forest extends for over , attaining a width of up to 50 kilometres in the south, and up to 30 kilometres in the north (). Tectonically the range forms a lifted fault block, which rises prominently in the west from the Upper Rhine Plain, whilst seen from the east it has the appearance of a heavily forested plateau.
Rhineland-Palatinate shares international borders with France (Grand Est), Luxembourg (Clervaux, Diekirch, Echternach, Grevenmacher, Remich, and Vianden), and Belgium (Wallonia). Within Germany it neighbours Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Northrhine-Westphalia, and the Saarland. It is the ninth largest state by area. Rhineland-Palatinate is part of the SaarLorLux euregion.
The history of the Black Forest area is closely paralleled by that of a larger area traditionally known as the "Pineries". The area originally extended from Divide, Colorado (now known as the town of Monument, Colorado), through the present planning area and east along the Platte-Arkansas Divide to a point where the Ponderosa Pines thinned out. Altogether the Pineries encompassed a 1,000 square mile area. Although the origin of the name is not clear, that portion of the Pineries north of Colorado Springs became known as the "Black Forest" by around the turn of the century.
The Southeastern Black Forest (', 154) consists mainly of the catchment areas of the upper reaches of the Danube headstreams, the and as well as the left side valleys of the north of – and thus draining from the northeast of the Southern Black Forest. To the south and west it is adjoined by the High Black Forest (', 155) with the highest summits in the whole range around the and the . Its eastern part, the Southern Black Forest Plateau, is oriented towards the Danube, but drained over the and the into the Rhine. The southern crest of the Black Forest in the west is deeply incised by the Rhine into numerous ridges. Immediately right of the above rises the relatively small Bunter Sandstone- table of the Uplands ("") in the extreme southwest of the Black Forest; morphologically, geologically and climatically it is separate from the other parts of the Southern Black Forest and, in this classification, is also counted as part of the High Black Forest.
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate was founded shortly after the Second World War on 30 August 1946. It was formed mainly from the southern part of the Prussian Rhine Province (the "Regierungsbezirke" of Koblenz and Trier), from Rhenish Hesse, from the western part of Nassau and the Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate minus the county of Saarpfalz. The Joint German-Luxembourg Sovereign Region ("Gemeinschaftliches deutsch-luxemburgisches Hoheitsgebiet") is the only unincorporated area of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. This condominium is formed by the rivers Moselle, Sauer, and Our, where they run along the border between Luxembourg and Rhineland-Palatinate or the Saarland.
The Black Forest National Park () was created on 1 January 2014 and is the first national park in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The state parliament voted for its establishment on 28 November 2013. The national park has an area of and is located on the main crest of the Northern Black Forest, mainly between the Black Forest High Road ("Schwarzwaldhochstraße") and the valley of the Murg. It comprises two separate areas, roughly 3.5 kilometres apart, around Ruhestein (7,615 ha) and Hoher Ochsenkopf/Plättig (2,447 ha) and is part of the Central/North Black Forest Nature Park ("Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord"). The park was officially opened on 3 May 2014
The Black Forest Foothills (', 150) geomorphologically form plateaux on the north and northeast periphery of the mountain range that descend to the in the north and the landscapes in the east. They are incised by valleys, especially those of the Nagold river system, into individual interfluves; a narrow northwestern finger extends to beyond the near and also borders the middle reaches of the to the west as far as a point immediately above . To the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest ' and Hills (', 151), along the upper reaches of the and , forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. The west of the Northern Black Forest is formed by the Northern Black Forest Valleys (', 152) with the middle reaches of the around , the middle course of the to , the middle reaches of the above and the upper reaches of the around . Their exit valleys from the mountain range are all oriented towards the northwest.
The Central Black Forest (153) is mainly restricted to the catchment area of the River above as well as the and the low hills north of the .
The Northern Black Forest is bounded in the north by a line from Karlsruhe to Pforzheim and, in the south, by a line running from the Rench valley to Freudenstadt. Its northern boundary largely coincides with the emergence of the extensively forested bunter sandstone strata from the arable region of the Kraichgau; its southern boundary with the Central Black Forest (or, in the case of a bipartite division, the Southern Black Forest) varies depending on the definition or natural regional division used (see also Black Forest). Earlier the Northern Black Forest was the entire northern half of the mountain range as far as the line of the Kinzig valley, which divides the Black Forest east of Lahr. To the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain, to the east by the Gäu landscapes.
The Southern Black Forest () refers to the highest part of the Black Forest which was heavily transformed by ice age glaciation south of a line roughly from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen. The term High Black Forest is not quite identical; that usually includes the highest part of the Central Black Forest, southeast of the Elz valley, as well. The Southern Black Forest Nature Park ("Naturpark Südschwarzwald") also takes in this area, extending across the whole of the High Black Forest as well as several peripheral areas.
The Big Pasture Plateau ( ) is a karstified mountain plateau in the Kamnik–Savinja Alps northeast of Kamnik, Slovenia. It measures and has an average elevation of above sea level. Its highest point is Mount Gradišče, at . There are numerous herders' dwellings that comprise several settlement areas: "Velika Planina" 'Big Pasture', "Mala Planina" 'Little Pasture', "Gojška Planina" 'Gozd Pasture' (named for the village of Gozd), "Tiha Dolina" 'Quiet Valley', and others. The Big Pasture Plateau is a tourist destination both in winter as a ski resort and in summer as a place for relaxation.
Rhineland-Palatinate is located in western Germany covering an area of and a population of 4.05 million inhabitants, the seventh-most populous German state. Mainz is the state capital and largest city, while other major cities include Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Koblenz, Trier, Kaiserslautern, and Worms. Rhineland-Palatinate is surrounded by the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse. It also borders three foreign countries: France, Luxembourg and Belgium.
Romania's Carpathians are differentiated into three ranges: the Eastern Carpathians, the Southern Carpathians or Transylvanian Alps, and the Western Romanian Carpathians. Each of these ranges has important distinguishing features. The Eastern Carpathians are composed of three parallel ridges that run from northwest to southeast. The westernmost ridge is an extinct volcanic range with many preserved cones and craters. The range has many large depressions, in the largest of which the city of Brașov is situated. Important mining and industrial centers as well as agricultural areas are found within these depressions. The Eastern Carpathians are covered with forests—some 32 percent of the country's woodlands are there. They also contain important ore deposits, including gold and silver, and their mineral water springs feed numerous health resorts.
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 Bundesländer (federal states) of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 km² and about 4.048 million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946.
Archaeological finds from both the Old Stone Age and the New Stone Age on the Königsberg's and the Selberg's west flank, barrows in the Jungenwald (forest) at the town limits with Aschbach and Lohnweiler that have been explored and many finds of Roman coins with effigies of Roman emperors at the old Celtic settlement, which was once surrounded by a ringwall, on the Kreimberg at the town limit with Kreimbach-Kaulbach (known as the "Heidenburg", or “Heathen Castle”) bear witness to the presence of people in what is now Wolfstein in prehistoric times and early historic times. Leading over the ridge of the Königsberg was the “Roman road”, one of the Palatinate's oldest settlement roads. Nevertheless, there was never any Roman settlement within what are now Wolfstein's limits.
Named forests are found within eight distinct regions. These forests may also be part of ecosystems, a number of which extend south into the United States. For example, the Northern hardwood forest is an ecosystem located in large areas of southeastern and south central Canada as well as in Ontario and Quebec. This system extends south into the United States.
The Palatine Watershed, the drainage divide between the Rhine (Upper Rhine) and Moselle (Middle Rhine) comes from the Sickingen Heights in the west and reaches the northern Palatine Forest immediately west and south of the city of Kaiserslautern where it turns southeast. From Johanniskreuz it runs initially southwards – passing the Eschkopf and Mosisberg to the west – and then bends southwest in the area of the Hortenkopf; in this direction it continues via Gräfenstein Castle, Lemberg and forester's lodge, "Forsthaus Hohe List", before finally leaving German soil at the "Erlenkopf" southeast of Eppenbrunn (see map). It follows various ridges that are interconnected and separate the river system of the Schwarzbach from all the other drainage systems mentioned here.
The Palatinate Forest Nature Park () lies in the south of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany and borders on France. The nature park covers an area of and some 76% of its area is under the woods of the Palatinate Forest, the largest contiguous forest region in Germany. Together with a part of northern Alsace it forms the Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve and has an impressive Bunter sandstone landscape.
The Palatine Forest Club () is a hiking club in the former Bavarian Palatinate, i.e. the southern part of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland county of Saarpfalz-Kreis. In 2011 it had 221 local branches with around 27,000 members.
The Palatinate Forest can be divided into three areas.The Palatinate Forest is a major (3rd level) natural region within the Palatine-Saarland Scarplands (a 2nd order major region) and runs south as far as the Col de Saverne, i.e. far into French territory, where it continues as the Vosges ridge. This often goes unrecognized as a result of the French border; hence the French southern part of the natural region is often, wrongly, counted as part of the North Vosges.