Battenberg (Eder)

Battenberg ( German pronunciation: [ˈbatn̩ˌbɛʁk] ) is a small town in the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is located on the river Eder, a tributary of the Fulda, which flows into the Weser, and lies at the southeastern edges of the Rothaar Mountains. The closest larger cities are Marburg, Siegen, and Kassel, and the town is approximately equally far away from Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, and Dortmund.

In 1624, Battenberg was incorporated into the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt (since 1806 the Grand Duchy of Hesse) as part of the so called Hessian Hinterland, an almost-exclave, which was connected to Upper Hesse (de) only through a tiny corridor west of Gießen. The "Hinterland" was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866, and merged with the territories of the former Duchy of Nassau, to form the Province of Hesse-Nassau in 1868. From 1918 on, the town lay in the Free State of Prussia, and since 1945, it is in the federal state of Hesse.