Harskirchen is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Bas-Rhin

Bas-Rhin

Bas-Rhin is a department of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the Alsace region, with 1,079,013 inhabitants in 2006.- History :...

 department in Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 in north-eastern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Location

Harskirchen lies in the French Saar region, in the extreme northwest of Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

. It is on the eastern bank of the Saar Coal Canal, which connects the Saar River

Saar River

The Saar is a river in northeastern France and western Germany, and a right tributary of the Moselle. It rises in the Vosges mountains on the border of Alsace and Lorraine and flows northwards into the Moselle near Trier. It has two headstreams , that both start near Mont Donon, the highest peak...

 with the Rhine-Marne Canal

Marne-Rhine Canal

The Marne-Rhine Canal is a canal in north eastern France. It connects the river Marne in Vitry-le-François with the Rhine in Strasbourg. Combined with the canalised part of the Marne, it allows transport between Paris and eastern France. The original objective of the canal was to connect Paris...

.

Churches

Like many villages in Alsace in and the German Upper Rhineland, Harskirhen contains both a Protestant church and a Catholic church. The Lutheran church dates from the eighteenth century and is decorated in the Baroque

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 style, while the nineteenth century Catholic church is distinguished by a nineteenth century Neo Gothic

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

tower.