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{{more footnotes needed|date=September 2017}}
{{Infobox German location
|type               = Stadt
|name              = Bad Orb
|image_photo = Wintersberg (Bad Orb) 2020.jpg
|image_caption = Bad Orb seen from Molkenberg
|image_coa            = DEU Bad Orb COA.svg
|coordinates       = {{coord|50|13|N|09|21|E|format=dms|display=inline,title}}
|image_plan = Bad Orb in MKK.svg
|state        = Hessen
|region  = Darmstadt
|district         = Main-Kinzig-Kreis
|elevation              = 200 - 250
|area            = 47.75
|postal_code               = 63619
|area_code           = 06052
|licence               = MKK, GN, SLÜ
|Gemeindeschlüssel = 06 4 35 001
|website           = {{url|https://stadt-bad-orb.de}}
|mayor             = Tobias Weisbecker<ref>{{cite web|url=https://statistik.hessen.de/sites/statistik.hessen.de/files/2022-10/direktwahlen_09_2022_10102022.xlsx|title=Ergebnisse der letzten Direktwahl aller hessischen Landkreise und Gemeinden|language=de|date=5 September 2022|publisher=[[Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt]]|format=XLS}}</ref>
|leader_term       = 2021&ndash;27
|party             = CDU
}}

'''Bad Orb''' ({{IPA|de|baːt ˈɔʁp|lang|De-Bad Orb.ogg}}; "[[Thermae]] on the [[Orb (Kinzig)|Orb River]]") is a spa town in the [[Main-Kinzig-Kreis]] district of [[Hesse]], [[Germany]]. It is situated {{convert|32|km}} east of [[Hanau]] between the forested hills of the [[Spessart]]. Bad Orb has a population of over 10,000. Its economy is dominated by the health and tourism sectors.

==Geography==
===Location===
[[File:Stadt Bad Orb.svg|thumb|Constituent communities]]
Bad Orb is located in the valley of the [[Orb (Kinzig)|Orb]], a tributary of the [[Kinzig (Main)|Kinzig]]. The town is surrounded by the wooded hills of the [[Spessart]], including the [[Wintersberg (Spessart)|Wintersberg]]. The closest larger cities are [[Hanau]], [[Aschaffenburg]] and [[Frankfurt]] to the southwest and [[Fulda]] to the northeast.

===Neighboring communities===
From the north, clockwise, Bad Orb borders on [[Wächtersbach]], [[Bad Soden-Salmünster]], the [[unincorporated area]] [[Gutsbezirk Spessart]], [[Jossgrund]] and  [[Biebergemünd]].

==History==
The region was inhabited by [[Celts]] by c. 650 BC, but it is not known whether they were aware of the local salt deposits.

In 1054 [[Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor]] gifted the area around Orb (''Orbaha'') to the ''Stift St. Stefan'' at Mainz, it thus came under the control of the [[Electorate of Mainz]], a part of which it remained until 1803. Bad Orb was first documented in 1059. Orb is referred to as a town for the first time in the 13th century.<ref name="Zeitreise"/>{{rp|75}}

Town privileges included the minting of a coin, the ''Orber Hälbling'' ("half-[[Pfennig]] of Orb"). The remains of the town wall that still exist today also originate from this time.

The historic trading route (and modern day long-distance hiking trail) ''[[Eselsweg]]'' ("donkey trail") that runs to [[Großheubach]] in the district of [[Miltenberg (district)|Miltenberg]] from [[Schlüchtern]] originates at Bad Orb. In the past, this route was used to transport [[salt]] to the [[Main (river)|Main]].<ref name="Zeitreise">{{cite book |last1=Schumacher|first1=Karin|last2=Schumacher |first2=Hans-Jürgen|title=Zeitreise durch den Spessart (German) |publisher=Wartberg Verlag|year=2003 |isbn=3-8313-1075-0}}</ref>{{rp|74}}

The extraction of salt from several salt springs formed the town. There were eleven ''Salinen'' (one of which has been renovated and preserved), sometimes called "thorn houses" or "salt works", belonging in the [[decoction]] facility, in which brine dripped over a total length of {{convert|2050|meters}} of [[Prunus spinosa|blackthorn]] twigs in order to raise the salt concentration of the water before boiling. Salt production reached its high point in the 17th and 18th centuries.

After [[German mediatisation|mediatisation]], by way of the [[Principality of Aschaffenburg]] and the [[Grand Duchy of Frankfurt]] Orb eventually came to the [[Kingdom of Bavaria]] in 1814. Spa activities started as early as 1837. After the [[Austro-Prussian War]] of 1866, Bad Orb became Prussian in 1867. In 1884, a children's medical facility was founded by the brothers Friedrich Hufnagel and Wilhelm Hufnagel, which today is known as the Spessart-Klinik. After 1900, [[brine]] began to be used as an alternative medicine. In 1899 salt production ceased at Orb. Bad Orb was named a nationally certified spa town in 1909. The remaining salina today is used for medical treatments, especially inhalation and relaxation.

From 1939 to 1945, Bad Orb was the site of a [[prisoner-of-war camp]] named [[Stalag IX-B]] located on the nearby hill, Wegscheideküppel. The camp held Soviet, American, French, Italian and Serbian soldiers. Toward the end of the war the conditions at Stalag IX-B deteriorated precipitously, as a result of poor supply and scarcity of fuel. There is a monument to the Soviet dead located at a graveyard south of the former camp site.

With the end of the Prussian state, Bad Orb became a part of Hesse.

==Economy==
Bad Orb is a spa town. Hospitals, [[Physical medicine and rehabilitation|rehabilitation]] and physical therapy facilities and medical doctors dominate. Next to the health sector, tourism is the most important industry.

[[File:Altes Rathaus (Bad Orb).jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.197|Former town hall, today tourist information]]

==Mayors==
* 2021 - incumbent: Tobias Weisbecker (CDU)
* 2016 - 2021: Roland Weiß<ref>[http://www.statistik-hessen.de/themenauswahl/wahlen/daten/direktwahlen/bad-orb-stadt/index.html Hessisches Statistisches Landesamt: Direktwahlen in Bad Orb]</ref><ref>[http://www.gnz.de/artikelansicht01/noticias/212980/weiss-meine-amtszeit-hat-begonnen-1649957 Gelnhäuser Neue Zeitung 9 November 2015: Weiss: Meine Amtszeit hat begonnen] retrieved 10 August 2016</ref> 
* 2010 - March 2016 Helga Uhl
* 1998 - 2010 Wolfgang Storck (CDU)<ref>[http://www.fr-online.de/hanau-und-main-kinzig/bad-orb-abgang-eines-hoffnungstraegers,1472866,2878194.html Frankfurter Rundschau 16 March 2010: Wolfgang Storck: Abgang eines Hoffnungsträgers]</ref>

===Town twinning===
Twinned with: {{Flagicon|Russia}} [[Istra, Istrinsky District, Moscow Oblast|Istra]], [[Russia]]

==Attractions==
[[File:St. Martin Bad Orb-2.jpg|thumb|St. Martin]]
Bad Orb features an old town with numerous half-timbered houses, surrounded by the extensive remains of the medieval town wall including towers and a gate house. Notable examples of architecture include the buildings in Hauptstraße, the ''Henkershaus'', ''Alt-Orb'', ''Goldenes Rad'' and ''Salzgrafenhaus''. The old castle hosts a town museum.<ref name="Town"/>

There are two churches: ''St. Martin'' is a [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] [[hall church]] from the 14th century. It burned down in 1983, but was rebuilt in 1984 and 1995. ''Martin-Luther-Kirche'' was built 1902 and 1903 in [[Gothic Revival architecture|Gothic Revival style]]. It features two loaned bells from [[Silesia]] and [[East Prussia]]. The altar bible was a gift from Empress [[Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein]].<ref name="Town">{{cite web|url=http://www.bad-orb.de/rathaus/index.php?id=109|title=Bad Orb - 950 Jahre (German)|publisher=Gemeinde Bad Orb|access-date=15 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150922103308/http://www.bad-orb.de/rathaus/index.php?id=109|archive-date=22 September 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The town offers many amenities to the spa guests, including the ''Saline'' and the ''Kurpark''.
The forests around Bad Orb sport a network of hiking and biking trails.

There is also the ''Spessart Wildpark'', established in 1937,<ref name="park">{{cite web|url=http://www.spessart-wildpark.de/|title=Spessart Wildpark (German)|publisher=Spessart Wildpark|access-date=15 August 2015}}</ref> closed under a new leaseholder in 2014, who stepped back in 2021. Its future is not clear by 2022.

==Infrastructure==
Bad Orb is home to the ''Frankfurter Schullandheim Wegscheide'', a summer camp for children founded in 1920 on the grounds of the former army training camp which served as a POW camp in [[World War II]], and the "Spessart Clinic", a children's hospital founded in 1884.

===Utilities===
Like in other communities in the area, such as [[Biebergemünd]], [[Flörsbachtal]] and [[Jossgrund]], there is currently controversy over plans to build towering [[wind farm]]s on the wooded peaks surrounding the town of Bad Orb. Environmentalists and many locals reject these plans due to the destruction of forests and animal habitats, possible health risks to residents, as well as threats to local property values and, in particular, to the tourism/spa business as a result of a declining attractiveness of the region to visitors and patients. It is also questioned whether local winds are strong and constant enough to allow economical operation of the wind farms.<ref name="BI">{{cite web|url=http://www.gegenwind-bad-orb.de/gegenwind-bad-orb/|title=Bad Orb ohne Windkraft (German)|publisher=Gegenwind Bad Orb e.V.|access-date=15 August 2015}}</ref>

==Notable people==
===Sons and daughters of the town===
[[File:Georg Adalbert Huhn2JS.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.57|Georg Adalbert Huhn in 1880]]
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Karl von Braun|de}} (1832-1903), jurist
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Georg Adalbert Huhn|de}} (1839-1903), parish priest and prelate in Munich, Member of the Bavarian Parliament
* [[Gregor Kraus]] (1841-1915), botanist and university professor; Founder of microclimatology
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Burkhard Oly|de}} (1938-2008), sculptor and goldsmith

===People associated with Bad Orb===

* {{Interlanguage link multi|Helmut Jahn (painter)|de|3=Helmut Jahn (Maler)|lt=Helmut Jahn}} (1936-2013), painter, lived in Bad Orb
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Franz Leopold Koch|de}} (1782-1850), [[pharmacist]], founder and  operator of the first bathhouse in Orb.
* {{Interlanguage link multi|Franz Josef Scherf|de}} (1865-1929), doctor and spa director in Bad Orb (1905-1929), member of the provincial Landtag Kassel (1926-1929)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category|Bad Orb}}
{{Wikivoyage}}
* [http://www.bad-orb.de/ Official town website]

{{Towns and municipalities in Main-Kinzig-Kreis district}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Main-Kinzig-Kreis]]
[[Category:Spa towns in Germany]]