By contrast, the Celts and Romans viewed the entire mountain range west of the Rhine as a single unit, making no distinction between different parts of the region that, today, is the Palatinate Forest and the Vosges.

However, in recent decades, in the context of European integration (the Schengen Agreement), there has been an increasing trend to regard the entire mountain complex as a single geographical entity again.

The Plague) and famine led to a significant decline in population and the total number of settlements fell sharply (leaving abandoned villages), as a result of wars and economic circumstances.

Apart from the modest level of iron extraction and processing, work in the forests and the operation of paper mills, the shoemaking industry in the region Pirmasens was the only real source of income.

[20] At the same time, the forested highlands has gained increasing importance in the second half of the twentieth century as a place for recreation and leisure activities of special ecological status.

Whereas the Palatinate Forest was earlier seen mainly as a source of raw materials and energy supply, today, in addition to its recreation and leisure function, its ecological importance as a "special protected landscape" has come to the forefront.

In accordance with the requirements of the originator of the nature park concept, Alfred Toepfer, the Palatinate Forest was to be a place of recreation and exercise for the stressed office workers of the cities in the Rhine valley which were then suffering badly from air pollution.

Increasingly there was also a desire to replace the many coniferous monocultures, planted as a result of war, wartime reparations and times of crisis, with species rich site-specific mixed forests.

At the apex of the arch so formed, there were considerable tensile stresses, so that the rock layers were stretched and about 35 million years ago, deep cracks and depressions in the Earth's crust occurred (passive rifting).

Gneisses and slates form the bedrock of the Palatinate Forest today, but they are generally covered by younger rock formations, cropping out only in a few places on the eastern edge of the mountains.

The hard and resistant rocks of the Lower and Middle Bunter have produced a scarpland relief, whose cuestas characterize the landscape, especially in the north and east, whilst the southeastern part of the Palatinate Forest is dominated by rather isolated types of hill separated by erosion surfaces.

In the southeastern Palatinate Forest, by contrast, the sediments of the Rotliegendes and Zechstein (erosion surfaces), and especially resistant Trifels and Rehberg beds (conical hills) influence the appearance of the countryside.

The highest points on the German side of the Wasgau are the Rehberg (576.8 m) near Annweiler, the castle hill of the ruins of Wegelnburg (570.9 m) near Nothweiler, followed by the Hohe Derst (560.5 m) west of Bad Bergzabern and the Großer Eyberg (513.0 m) southwest of Dahn.

From Johanniskreuz it runs initially southwards – passing the Eschkopf and Mosisberg to the west – and then bends southwest in the area of the Hortenkopf; in this direction it continues via Gräfenstein Castle, Lemberg and forester's lodge, Forsthaus Hohe List, before finally leaving German soil at the Erlenkopf southeast of Eppenbrunn (see map).

[34][35] At the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, the region of the Palatine Forest was covered with tundra-like vegetation, amongst which, initially, undemanding tree species such as pine and birch were able to spread as the climate gradually warmed up (the "pine-birch" period).

The oak and beech mixed woods, typical of the current period, emerged, the pines being forced back into those areas that were either less favourable, very wet or very dry places, but remained part of the natural woodland.

Clearance by burning, the use of land for the production of straw and the unrestricted exploitation of the forest for raw materials and fuel led, little by little, to the devastation of wide areas of woodland, something that reached its peak in the 17th and 18th centuries (see Settlement history).

In the Palatine Forest, this regulated management produced mixed woodland, in which coniferous trees formed around two-thirds of the total stock in areas that had historically comprised mainly oak and beech.

Not until recent decades were there increasing attempts to turn larger areas of the forest into near-natural mixed woodland with a better ratio of deciduous to coniferous trees of around 50% (see adjacent table).

With the exception of the eastern mountain edge (the Haardt range), it is widely distributed on the acidic environment of the bunter sandstone soils and prefers shady slopes, high elevations and hollows.

Fox, badger, polecat, weasel and threatened mammal species such as bats, pine marten, European wildcat and Eurasian lynx are also found in the Palatinate Forest.

Whilst the strictly protected peregrine falcon has been resident in the rock country of the Wasgau for several decades, hazel grouse and capercaillie appear to have died out in the Palatine Forest region.

Thanks to the sparse population of the forest and the filter action of bunter sandstone, many springs and streams in the hills have retained their natural water quality, so that they remain healthy habitats for many species of fish.

[40] Worthy of mention is the imperial castle of Trifels near Annweiler, where, at the end of the 12th century, the English king, Richard the Lionheart, was held prisoner; in the wake of which the Blondel legend arose.

Information centres/Museums) Other ancient forest-like cells of natural woodland may be found in the source region of the (Wies)-Lauter below the Weißenberg in one of the core zones of the biosphere reserve as well as the border area between Eppenbrunn, Stürzelbronn, Fischbach and Obersteinbach.

The biosphere reserve has three information centres with different emphases, in which the visitor can learn about the geology, climate, fauna and flora, history and culture of the bunter sandstone mountains with the aid of exhibitions as well as events of all kinds.

In this connexion the visitor is also introduced to the Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve in a comprehensive permanent exhibition with vivid displays of the particular features of these bunter sandstone mountains.

The Max Slevogt Art Gallery in Villa Ludwigshöhe contains, inter alia, paintings by Impressionist masters that reflect the rich colours of the southern Palatinate countryside, which may be experienced, for example, at Slevogthof Neukastel above Leinsweiler.

In the building of a former shoe factory, old shoe-making machinery and other manufacturing technology may be viewed and the changes in shoe production experienced vividly (see the history of settlement) Interesting insights into the sorts of old trades and crafts that used to be found in the Palatinate Forest, are provided by several museums, including the Brushmakers' Museum (Bürstenbindermuseum) in Ramberg; this uses a variety of exhibits to illustrate the industrial and social development that has taken over the past few centuries in the Ramberg valley.

The Rietburgbahn, a chairlift up the Rietburg hill near Edenkoben, from where there is a good view of the Rhine Plain, and the Bad Dürkheim Gondola Lift, which from 1973 to 1981 went up the Teufelsstein and which is planned to re-open are two aerial cableways on the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest.