Location

At Alf, the Alf, or Alfbach, empties into the Moselle. The municipality lies on the Moselle's left bank. The municipal area measures 6.33 km², of which 0.67 km² is vineyards and 3.79 km² is wooded.

Neighbouring municipalities

Two neighbours are Bullay and Pünderich, both on the right bank.

Constituent communities

Alf's Ortsteile are the main centre, also called Alf, and the outlying centres of Höllenthal and Alf-Fabrik. The latter is historically an industrial centre, as its name suggests (Fabrik means “factory” in German). Both these centres lie on the river Alf, inland from the Moselle.

Municipal council

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected by proportional representation at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:^[4]

Mayor

Alf's mayor is Miriam Giardini-Molzahn, successor of Peter Mittler (SPD), who held office from 2009 to 2019.

Coat of arms

The municipality's arms might be described thus: Gules in base an inescutcheon couped bendwise sinister in dexter chief argent charged with a cross enhanced of the field, standing thereupon a bishop, in his dexter hand a bunch of grapes and in his sinister a bishop's staff, all Or.

Museums

Alf's small local history museum has displays about the village's industrial history.

Buildings

Worth seeing is Castle Arras looming above the village, built in the early 12th century. Also nearby stands another castle, the Marienburg in the neighbouring municipality of Zell. The village's landmark is the belltower at the parish church built in 1734 and later remodelled in Gothic Revival style. There is also a well known statue, Christus in der Rast, from the 15th century.

A few hundred metres from the village centre stands the Electoral-Trier Amtshaus built in the 16th century, a three-floor stone building. The roof was refurbished about 1620^[5]

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

• Saint Remigius’s Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Remigius), Koblenzerstraße 11 – Gothic Revival basilica, quarrystone, 1892-1894; warriors’ memorial before the church; Gothic Revival Crucifixion group, statue Christus in der Rast, about 1500; mission cross, monumental zone with graveyard and rectory.
• Auf der Hill 2 – Late Classicist villa, latter half of 19th century.
• Auf der Hill 3 – Classicist villa from 1853.
• Auf der Hill 4/5 – two-and-a-half-floor Late Classicist quarrystone house with cellar, latter half of 19th century.
• Auf Kockert – old parish church tower, three-floor tower with tent roof from 1734, but essentially mediaeval.
• Auf Kockert 6 – Electoral-Trier Amtshaus, three-floor Early Baroque house with gabled roof, late 16th century, remodelled possibly in 1620-1621 (roof truss dendrochronology), portal from 1700.
• Auf Kockert 10 – former school, timber-frame building, partly solid, essentially early 17th century; oven.
• Auf Kockert 14 – Art Nouveau villa, about 1900.
• Auf Tannerd – villa, Classicist Revival building with mansard roof, 1920s.
• Brunnenstraße 1 – timber-frame house, partly solid, about 1600.
• Ferdinand-Remy-Straße 1 – Late Historicist shophouse, 1902.
• Graveyard – graveyard cross from 1869, four grave crosses from 1848, 18(??); late 19th century, about 1900.
• Junkergasse 8 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, from 1760.
• Koblenzerstraße 12 – plastered timber-frame house, latter half of 18th century.
• Koblenzerstraße 18 – “Hotel zur Post”, former Thurn und Taxis estate, stately post-Baroque plastered building, 1810.
• At Mühlenstraße 2 – Gothic Revival sandstone cross.
• Mühlenstraße 13 – house, partly slated, Swiss chalet style, about 1910.
• Schulgasse 2 – timber-frame house, partly solid, 18th century, but bears the date 1580.
• Wilburgstraße 5 – late mediaeval Burgmann’s quarrystone house from 1448 (according to dendrochronology).
• Mountain chapel, north of the village, small aisleless church, 19th century; Pietà from 18th century.
• Burg Arras (castle) – essentially a mediaeval castle complex, fallen into disrepair by late 18th century, expanded in 1907–1910, architect P. Marx, Trier.
• Coat of arms on Bundesstraße 49, 18th century (?).^[6]

Established businesses

The biggest employer in Alf and the surrounding region is the Finnish packaging company Huhtamäki, which maintains one of its 70 or so plants worldwide in the outlying centre of Alf-Fabrik. It makes stiff plastics and hard paper for packaging purposes.

Transport

Across the river from Alf lies the bigger centre of Bullay with a railway station on the Koblenz-Trier railway, easily reached over the Alf-Bullay double-deck bridge. Alf is the location of the junction of Bundesstraßen 49 and 53.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Peter A. Juley (1862–1837), photographer
• Jo Niemeyer (b. 16 June 1946), graphic artist, designer and painter