Messel : Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Messel

Municipality in Hesse, Germany

Coat of arms

Location of Messel within Darmstadt-Dieburg district

(2022–28) Thorsten Buhrmester^[1]Area

• Total14.82 km² (5.72 sq mi)Elevation

172 m (564 ft)Population

(2022-12-31)^[2]

• Total4,194 • Density280/km² (730/sq mi)Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET) • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)Postal codes

64409

Dialling codes06159Vehicle registrationDA / DIWebsitewww.messel.de

Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

The village is first mentioned, as Masilla, in the Lorsch codex. Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca. 1400 to 1799. After the extinction of the Groschlag male lineage, the village would have passed to the Archbishopric of Mainz but the population refused to accept this transition and paid homage to the daughters of the Groschlag family instead. The minister of the archbishopric, von Albini, consequently occupied the village with a force of 50 hussars. In 1806, the village fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse.

The nearby Messel pit is an important site for Eocene fossils.

Signpost at the entrance
Evangelical Church of 1545

References

^ "Ergebnisse der letzten Direktwahl aller hessischen Landkreise und Gemeinden" (XLS) (in German). Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt. 5 September 2022.
^ "Bevölkerung in Hessen am 31.12.2022 nach Gemeinden" (XLS) (in German). Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt. June 2023.