Udenheim is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

belonging to a ''

Verbandsgemeinde A Verbandsgemeinde (; plural Verbandsgemeinden) is a low-level administrative unit in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. A Verbandsgemeinde is typically composed of a small group of villages or towns. Rhinelan ...

'', a kind of collective municipality – in the

Alzey-Worms Alzey-Worms () is a district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by (from the east and clockwise) the district Groß-Gerau (Hesse), the city of Worms and the districts of Bad Dürkheim, Donnersbergkreis, Bad Kreuznach and Mainz-Binge ...

district in

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Geography

Location

As a

winegrowing Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

centre, Udenheim lies in Germany’s biggest winegrowing district, in the middle of the

wine region This list of wine-producing regions catalogues significant growing regions where vineyards are planted. Wine grapes mostly grow between the 30th and the 50th degree of latitude, in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Grapes will sometimes ...

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (german: Rheinhessen) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland- ...

. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Wörrstadt, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

Politics

Municipal council

The council is made up of 16 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairwoman. The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:

Coat of arms

The German blazon reads: ''In blau ein goldener, von zwei roten Sparren belegter Schräg-rechts-Balken, beseitet von je einem silbernen rechtsgewendeten Adler. Darüber in einem goldenen Schildhaupt ein blaues Rebengewinde''. The municipality’s arms might in English

heraldic Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known bran ...

language be described thus: Azure a bend Or charged with two chevrons gules between two eagles displayed argent, in a chief of the second a vine wavy with three bunches of grapes and leafed of two, all of the first. The German blazon does not specify how many bunches of grapes or leaves (if indeed any) there are to be, however. The chief with its grapevine, of course, expresses the importance of

in Udenheim, which indeed is an important business throughout

. The field is

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d with elements taken from two noble families’ coats of arms. These former nobles were the Lords of Udenheim (the bend, that is, diagonal stripe, in this case charged with chevrons), whose kinsman Peter von Udenheim was enfeoffed with the village by Count Heinrich II von Sponheim in 1380, and the family Köth von Wannscheid, who lived in the area, and whose kinsman Johann Friedrich von Köth was buried in the Udenheim church in 1590. In 1956, a different, but nonetheless rather similar-looking coat of arms was proposed for Udenheim. It had no chief (the band at the top of the escutcheon), but otherwise the charges and

tincture A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.Groot Handboek Geneeskrachtige Planten by Geert Verhelst In chemistr ...

s were the same as in the arms eventually adopted, with one small exception: There was only one eagle; there was none in base, and the bend simply had an empty blue field underneath.Description and explanation of Udenheim’s arms
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Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

Since 1874, a belltower has stood in the middle of the village that was built for a foreseen church that was itself never built. The tower also long served as an alarm for the fire brigade.

References

External links

Municipality’s official webpage
{{Authority control Alzey-Worms