Meisburg (in Eifel dialect: Mesbuasch) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun, whose seat is in the like-named town. In Meisburg, a Moselle Franconian dialect is spoken. Geography Location The municipality lies on Bundesstraße 257 between Daun (19 km) and Bitburg (24 km) in the middle of the Vulkaneifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth. The German Volcano Route, which opened in September 2006, runs past the village. The village sits in the valley of the Dümpelbach at a mean elevation of 480 m above sea level. The highest elevations in the area are the Daxelberg at 589 m above sea level and Rackenbach at 522 m above sea level. The Schafbach, which empties into the Lohsalm, rises in the Salmwald (forest), a water-rich area with a waterworks. From here, great parts of the Bernkastel-Wittlich district are supplied with drinking water. Neighbouring municipalities All the following are Meisburg’s immediate neighbours: History The Eifel’s settlement history gives clues as to when the village of Meisburg might have arisen. Finds from the New Stone Age from about 4500 to 1800 BC and clues to Roman settlement about AD 300 in what is now Meisburg’s municipal area bear witness to human habitation here quite early on. The municipality owns a collection of Stone-Age stone hatchets, blades, scraping tools and arrowheads. Following the Celts were the Romans. The Roman road known as the Weinstraße (“Wine Road”) also came through the Meisburg area, running from Kirn in the Hunsrück by way of Wittlich, and then on the Rackenbacher Wies’chen (a “little meadow”) past nearby Meisburg to Prüm and Malmedy. The Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier has confirmed an ancient settlement in the rural cadastral area “In der Delt” from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, presumably a Roman farm. The Romans were driven out by Germanic tribes, and later in the course of the Migration Period came the Franks. In Meisburg, a Moselle Franconian dialect is still spoken today. Although the municipality marked 750 years of existence in 1979, but it is quite a bit older than that. Meisburg was first mentioned (as “Meisbreth”) in a document of Pope Innocent II in 1140