page_title: Eckbach
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Eckbach / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Leiningen coat of arms Deutsch: Wappen der von Leiningen
context_page_description: The Eckbach is a small river in the northeastern Palatinate and the southeastern Rhenish Hesse. It is slightly over 39 kilometres long.
context_section_description: The old name of the river, the Eck is thought by linguistic experts to be derived from the word Ache, commonly used in the Upper German dialects of South Germany to mean "river" or "stream", which in turn came from the Old High German word aha.
  In the Middle Ages the Eckbach bore the name Leinbach, which is where its association with the lime tree arose. Leinbaum is the local word for both the large-leaved lime and the Norway maple; two species of tree that used to be very common on the banks of the Eckbach. They differ, however, especially in terms of the leaf shape: maple leaves have five lobes; lime leaves are undivided. The Leiningen family coat of arms of displays a stylised tree, whose leaves - and its five-petalled flowers – are clearly those of a lime. The noble family of Leiningen who came from the region of the upper Eckbach were permitted to name their family castle after the old name for the stream; from which in turn the subsequent name of the family was derived.
  The fact that the stream, originally called the Eck, now bears the name Eckbach goes back to the Kingdom of Bavaria, which was granted that part of the  Palatinate west of the Rhine in 1816. When Bavarian officials surveyed the Palatine cartographically they changed the name, in ignorance of the name's origin, in order to make clear that the Eck was a river (otherwise the word Eck or Ecke in German means "corner"). The result is that the present name of Eckbach linguistically means "stream stream".
caption: Leiningen family coat of arms depicting a stylised tree that represents a lime
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