Location

Rieneck lies in the Würzburg region between the southern foothills of the Rhön (range) and the east side of the Spessart (range) on the lower reaches of the River Sinn, 12 km northeast of Lohr am Main, and 39 km northwest of Würzburg. Administratively, it belongs to the Main-Spessart district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia.

There are 140 ha of cropfields, meadows and woodland around the village.

Subdivisions

The town has only the Gemarkung (traditional rural cadastral area) of Rieneck.

Tourism

Rieneck lies at the foot of Rieneck Castle and is surrounded by wooded hills with mixed broadleaf forests (Spessart oak). The Sinn valley floodplain (Sinntalaue), which in the late 1990s became a nature reserve, provides a habitat for rare animals, like the beaver, and protected plants, like the snake's head.

Rieneck Castle, the town's landmark, changed hands many times over the years. Since 1959, it has housed a modern Jugendburg (a youth meeting and training centre) run by the Verband Christlicher Pfadfinderinnen und Pfadfinder, a Christian Guiding and Scouting organization. The castle's sponsor is the Bildungs- und Erholungswerk Burg Rieneck (BEW e.V., "Rieneck Castle Educational and Recreational Works"). The Romanesque Dreikonchenkapelle (chapel) is built into the 8 m-thick walls of the Dicker Turm ("Thick Tower") in a cloverleaf shape. The special shape of the chapel is unique in Continental Europe.^{[citation needed]} A construction like this is found only in the British Isles in a similar defensive tower.

Mayors

Since 1 May 2020, Sven Nickel (Freie Bürger) is mayor of Rieneck.^[1]

Coat of arms

The town's arms might be described thus: Quartered, first and fourth Or three chevrons gules, second and third barry of ten of the same, the whole surmounted at the fess point by a wheel spoked of six argent.

Town seals are only known as far back as the 19th century. No official approval for the arms is known. However, the arms show the two historically most important lordly families' arms. The two quarters with horizontal golden and red stripes are both based on the arms formerly borne by the Counts of Rieneck, and the other two, with the chevrons, are based on those formerly borne by the Counts of Hanau. The wheel is the Wheel of Mainz. The tinctures were laid down in writing in 1898.^[5]

Transport

Rieneck can be reached by railway via the Flieden–Gemünden line and by the Main-Spessart local bus service. The nearest InterCityExpress stop is the railway station at Würzburg, 50 km away, and the nearest airport is 100 km away, at Frankfurt.

Social services

Since 1978, SOS-Dorfgemeinschaft Hohenroth, an SOS Children's Village belonging to SOS-Kinderdorf Deutschland, the organization's German branch, has operated on Rieneck's outskirts, at the former "Hohenroth" estate. Just under 160 handicapped people (as of October 2007) live there with families who care for them, and they work in their own workshops, market gardens, dairies and bakeries. The products, which are made to Demeter guidelines, are sold in the village's own farm shop. Although Rieneck has close ties with Hohenroth, the latter is officially a Stadtteil of Gemünden am Main.