Westrich Plateau

[6] The Westrich Plateau consists mainly of the Sickingen Heights in the north and the Zweibrücken Hills in the south which, morphologically, belong more to northeastern Lorraine in France).

[7] The main plateau falls away in a marked scarp slope, the Sickingen Escarpment, to the northwest (towards the Homburg Basin) and especially to the north, towards the Landstuhl Marsh.

By contrast, the eastern edge of the Westrich transitions rather smoothly from its muschelkalk plateau to the bunter sandstone of the Palatine Forest.

In the east the land gradually descends to the settlement fringe of Pirmasens and the Trualbe, opposite the Queidersbach and the Moosalb valley, which forms the actual eastern boundary.

This compares with a purely Saarland division according to Quasten which also counts a narrow strip of land southwest of Blieskastel (right = west of the Blies) as part of the Zweibrücken Westrich.

The Westrich Plateau (highlighted) to the west of the Palatinate Forest and Wasgau
The Sickingen Escarpment rising from Landstuhl (on the left) to the Sickingen Heights (on the right)