Plansee
lake in Reutte District, Tyrol, Austria
Plansee is a lake in Reutte District, Tyrol, Austria, located at 47°28′10″N 10°48′20″E. Its surface is approximately 2.87 km² and its maximum depth is 78 metres.
It lies on Austrian Federal Highway B 179, which crosses the Ammersattel into Germany.
History
Plansee and Heiterwanger See are probably the remains of an Ice Age meltwater reservoir that once covered the entire Zwischentoren (de:Zwischentoren) area up to the Ehrwald Basin (de:Ehrwalder Becken).
The lake is first mentioned in a border description of the diocese of Freising from the years 1073/78 as Planse, other early names include; Please, Plense and Plase.
The Tyrolean princes and the Steingaden monastery held the fishing rights on the Plansee, as the Stams monastery in the 15th century through gift or acquisition. Duke Siegmund and his successor, Emperor Maximilian I, tried to get their hands on the best fishing waters in the country. Lake Achen from the Georgenberg monastery, and the Plansee from the Stams monastery. In Maximilian's fishing book from 1500, the Heiterwanger and Plansee are described as two particularly important lakes for the sovereign's hunting and fishing pleasures. However, the Stams monastery insisted on its rights and was granted a limited fishing right, which was confirmed in a contract of 1631 by Archduke Leopold V.
In 1902, the Plansee power plant was put into operation, and in 1908 the canal to the Heiterwanger See was built, and was eventually widened in 1951. Thanks to the greater generation of electricity brought about by Hermann Stern who succeeded in 1922 in persuading Paul Schwarzkopf to found the Plansee metal works.
“Plansee” enters the record as lake in Reutte District, Tyrol, Austria. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Plansee, lake and Reutte can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Plansee” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Plansee, lake and Reutte provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q575489. VIAF identifies the subject as 234184037. Authority coordinates are 47.469, 10.806. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1073, 1500, 1631 and 1902.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Plansee”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Plansee primary sources, Plansee archive and Plansee research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Plansee”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Plansee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.