Emmelshausen is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde Hunsrück-Mittelrhein, to which it also belongs. Emmelshausen is a state-recognized climatic spa (Luftkurort), and in state planning is set out as a lower centre. Geography Location The town lies in the Hunsrück roughly 6 km from the Rhine, south of Boppard and west of Sankt Goar. Constituent communities The Stadtteil of Liesenfeld lies on Emmelshausen's western town limit, on Landesstraße (State Road) 206 towards Gondershausen. It is the town's oldest centre. There is another Stadtteil called Basselscheid. History The earliest written documents date the founding of the settlement of Liesenfeld to the 15th century. As early as the 13th century, there was within what are now Emmelshausen's limits a settlement of the same name, which over time was forsaken. In the forest east of Emmelshausen was the Gallenscheid Court's execution place. The Court's administrative seat was Castle Schöneck. In 1314, the Court was pledged by the Empire to the Electorate of Trier, but the pledge was never redeemed. Beginning in 1794, Emmelshausen lay under French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. After the First World War, the municipalities of Liesenfeld, Basselscheid and Halsenbach ceded parts of their municipal areas so that the new railway station could be built in Emmelshausen. Emmelshausen became self-administering only in 1935; Liesenfeld and Basselscheid were amalgamated with the new municipality, which since 1946 has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In response to an application made by the Ortsgemeinde of Emmelshausen, the State Government of Rhineland-Palatinate decided on 1 September 2009 to designate Emmelshausen as a Stadt (“city”). The official act of conferral took place on 27 June 2010. Politics Town council The honorary mayor is chair of the council. Elections were held in May 2014. Mayor Emmelshausen's mayor is Andrea Mallmann. Coat of arms The German blazon reads: The town's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per fess, in chief per pale argent a cross gules and sable a lion rampant Or armed, langued and crowned of the second, and in base gules three winged petasuses of the fourth. Fifteen years after its modern founding, Emmelshausen was granted a coat of arms. It symbolizes the merger of the two centres of Basselscheid and Liesenfeld into the much newer railway