Battenberg (officially Battenberg (Pfalz)) is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a '' Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies in the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration on the seam between the

Haardt The Haardt () is a range of wooded, sandstone hills in the state of Rhineland Palatinate in southwestern Germany. The range is some long and lies within the Palatinate Forest (''Pfälzerwald''). Its highest point is the Kalmit, near Maikammer ...

and the Upper Rhine Plain. Standing together 300 m above sea level, high above the river Eckbach's banks are the small village and the like-named castle, Burg Battenberg, to the east. Battenberg belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Leiningerland, formed in 2018, whose seat is in Grünstadt, although that town is itself not in the ''Verbandsgemeinde''.

History

Battenberg Castle Battenberg Castle (german: Burg Battenberg) is a castle ruin near Battenberg in the county of Bad Dürkheim in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Location The castle stands on a foothill of the Haardt range of sandstone hills which ri ...

, which was owned since the Middle Ages by the

Counts of Leiningen The House of Leiningen is the name of an old German noble family whose lands lay principally in Alsace, Lorraine, Saarland, Rhineland, and the Palatinate. Various branches of this family developed over the centuries and ruled counties with Impe ...

, to whom belonged the ''Leiningerland'', controlled together with the other castle across the dale to the north (1 400 m away as the crow flies),

Neuleiningen Castle Neuleiningen Castle is a ruin on the eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany in the municipality of Neuleiningen in the Bad Dürkheim district. It was built in 1238-41 by Count Frederick III of L ...

, the entrance to the valley, the Eckbach valley. On 7 September 1966, the municipality was given the epithet “(Pfalz)”. Until 1969, the municipality belonged to the now abolished district of Frankenthal (''Landkreis Frankenthal'').

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by

majority vote A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster Kommunalwahl Rheinland-Pfalz 2009, Gemeinderat
/ref>

Coat of arms

The municipality's

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

might be described thus: Per fess azure an eagle displayed wings elevated argent armed and langued gules, and argent a greyhound courant sinister sable. Battenberg's arms developed out of the link between the

and Murbach Abbey in Alsace. The “greyhound” here is called the “Hound of Murbach” in the German blazon.

References

External links

Municipality’s official webpage

Private webpage about Battenberg

Battenberg in the collective municipality’s Web pages
Bad Dürkheim (district) Palatinate (region) {{BadDürkheim-geo-stub