Oberkirn

The municipality lies in the Kyrbach valley between the Lützelsoon (a small, wooded plateau) to the southeast and the Idar Forest to the southwest, in the central Hunsrück.

The plain, Gothic church itself was built a few years before 1400 and houses the graves of the Schenken (roughly “Stewards”) at Schmidtburg, a sideline of that great comital dynasty from the Hahnenbach valley.

[6] The German blazon reads: In geteiltem Schild oben in Gold ein rotes Fabeltier mit einem Wolfskopf und weit geöffneten Schwingen, belegt mit einem schwarzen Wolfshaken.Unten in Blau ein goldener Bischofsstab begleitet von zwei silbernen Schnallen.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per fess Or a monster with a wolf's head and an eagle's body sans talons displayed gules, its breast charged with a cramp sable, and azure issuant from base a bishop's staff sinister of the first between two arming buckles argent.

The charges in the lower field refer to the Schenk of Schmidtburg, Lothar Karl Franz Josef, Cathedral Canon at Liège, Bishop Superior at Trier, Lord at Oberkirn (according to a plaque at the Church of Our Lady, or Liebfrauenkirche, in Trier) in the case of the bishop's staff, and the Amt of Schmidtburg in the case of the buckles.

The village lies in the Kyrbach valley, in the background the Idarkopf
Coat of arms
Coat of arms