Hesselberg (pronounced [ˈhɛsl̩ˌbɛʁk] ⓘ; 689 m above sea level) is the highest point in Middle Franconia and the Franconian Jura and is situated 60 km south west of Nuremberg, Germany.

The mountain stands isolated and far from the center of the Franconian Jura, in its southwestern border region, 4 km to the north west of Wassertrüdingen.

Many affluxes brought huge masses of rubble from the eastern mainland and formed a multilayer seafloor, which had a rich flora and fauna.

Because during the Early Jurassic Hesselberg was located in a sheltered basin it was not as eroded by wind and water as the plain between the mountain and the Hahnenkamm.

Each of the three main parts of the Jurassic era is divided into six sub-divisions, which are numbered with Greek letters alpha to zeta (Quenstedt's classification).

They expanded the wall of Limes in order to protect against the Germanic peoples and equipped it with many watchtowers, and in the immediate vicinity of Hesselberg large Castella were built.

From 496 to 506 and under the rule of Merovingian king Clovis I they defeated the Swabian Alamanni, who lost their northern territories that had formerly reached into the Neuwieder basin, and they were pushed back behind the Oos-Hornisgrinde-Asperg-Hesselberg line.

Despite the fact that the Franks overrode the Alamanni in a partly violent fashion, mixed settlements, such as Ehingen and Röckingen, almost always with a Franconian mayor, developed in the Hesselberg region.

The Franconian peasants established the three field crop rotation with its Flurzwang (a German system of rules relating to communal farmland in the Middle Ages), which was practiced until the modern consolidation of farming.

The building on Schlössleinsbuck was originally intended for use as a refuge, in the 11th or 12th century it was expanded by the lords of Lentersheim and adapted as a well-fortified knight's castle.

In fact, soldiers from the Hesselberg region accompanied the mentioned Hohenstaufen king Frederick II to Italy in 1239 in order to fight against pope Gregory IX.

Expensive holding of court and persistent conflicts with the imperial city Nuremberg lead to a high level of debt of the young principality and consequently they imposed an unbearable burden of taxes upon their subjects.

The margraves allowed Austrian and French religious refugees to become nationals and supported Jewish merchants in building up an existence, therefore a large number of Jews settled down in villages around Hesselberg.

An important date in the mountain's history was June 10, 1803, when the Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm III climbed Hesselberg during his visit to his Frankish estates.

Prior to World War II Jewish life and culture played an important role in the whole Hesselberg region.

The National Socialists were active in the villages around Hesselberg, they destroyed synagogues and expelled or displaced Jews to internment camps.

In a tradition dating from 1803 the Hesselberg Mass has been held on the Osterwiese on the first Sunday in July; it was on this day that king Frederick William III of Prussia and his wife Luise visited the mountain.

A trail leads from Gerolfingen through meadows with fruit trees and a beautiful chestnut avenue, whose older part was complemented with new plantations in autumn 2004.

The huge number of meadows containing fruit trees has led to the formation of the Interessengemeinschaft Moststraße (Community of Interest Must-Road) by several communes.

The Hesselberg Tourist Office, the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern (Bavarian Nature Conservation Alliance) (Ansbach district group), and the Landesbund für Vogelschutz in Bayern (Bavarian State Bird Conservation Alliance) (Ansbach district group) organise guided excursions and walking tours.

The German Alpine Association (Hesselberg section with an office in Bechhofen) have built a small hut on the northern slope in order to support winter sports.

However, encroachment of scrub such as blackthorne, rose, juniper, and ash has greatly increased at many places on the mountain despite the presence of herds belonging to two sheep farms (northern side: approx.

Since 1997 the municipality of Ehingen has struck out in new directions to deal with the conservation of these vast herding areas on Hesselberg's northern slopes.

Annual civil campaigns of important "descrubbing" and maintenance tasks are performed as a collaboration between the Landschaftspflegeverband Mittelfranken (Middle Franconian Landscape Conservation Association) and the shepherd Hans Goth.

This active support of sheep farming by the citizens ("descrubbing" significantly improves the pasture conditions) has multiple functions: Due to its multilayered rock, soil, climate, and cultivation, Hesselberg has bred a variety of vegetation with some plant communities particular to the area.

If the amount of herding was reduced, initially more thorny and needle-bearing shrubs would grow because these are eschewed by sheep - the large number of juniper bushes thrive for the same reason.

In many ways the fruitful meadows and fields of the Early Jurassic soil in Hesselberg's vicinity are the opposite of the nutrient-poor neglected grassland.

In the lower and middle parts of the slopes old and non-fertilised meadows with fruit trees offer a blaze of colour of different flowers.

All game that is typical of German forests (for example hare, roe, red fox, and squirrel) are present in Hesselberg's woods.

In heavy thunder storms people recognised the remaining walls of the ruins as eerie figures and specters, which they associated with the former inhabitants of the castles.