Usingen  Usingen is a small town in the Hochtaunuskreis in Hessen, Germany. Until 1972, this residential and school town was the seat of the former district of Usingen. The earliest seal whose appearance is known – there had been earlier ones, but what they looked like is unknown – dates from 1277 and shows the four lions (golden ones denoting Nassau; silver ones denoting Saarbrücken), since the town was ruled then by the Counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken. Later seals did not show the billets and crosses with which the fields are spangled, but they reappeared in 1935, when the current arms were conferred. An earlier town symbol, a cloverleaf (or heraldically, a trefoil), may explain the charge on the inescutcheon. This was also added to the arms in 1935. Usingen lies on the Usa River in the Usinger Becken at the north-eastern edge of the Taunus. It is located about 30 km north of Frankfurt am Main, 27 km south of Wetzlar and 38 km northeast of Wiesbaden, putting it on the edge of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main Region. The town core is about 300 m above sea level. The highest elevation in the main town of Usingen is the "Hohe Berg" ("High Mountain"), 414 m above sea level. Usingen borders in the north and east on the Wetteraukreis (town of Butzbach and community of Ober-Mörlen), in the southeast on the community of Wehrheim, in the south on the town of Neu-Anspach and the community of Schmitten, in the west on the community of Weilrod and in the northwest on the community of Grävenwiesbach. Usingen (Latin "Osinga"), which in Frankish times likely existed as a fortified stopping place at an old crossroads, was first mentioned in the "Codex Eberhardi", a manuscript from the Fulda monastery, and it is generally accepted that references made to the town go back to between 754 and 802. Archaeological proof of a settlement on the modern town's site back in Carolingian times has yet to be unearthed, although, not far from town, the remains of a Carolingian courtyard were once dug up. The possibility therefore exists that today's Usingen might not lie on the same spot as it once did, having relocated at some time in the past.