Kirschroth is anOrtsgemeinde – amunicipality belonging to aVerbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in theBad Kreuznachdistrict inRhineland-Palatinate,Germany. It belongs to theVerbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim, whose seat is in thelike-named town. Kirschroth is a state-recognizedtourism community^[3] and awinegrowing village.

Kirschroth
Municipality
Coat of arms
Location of Kirschroth within Bad Kreuznach district
Kirschroth Show map of Germany Kirschroth Show map of Rhineland-Palatinate
Coordinates:49°45′44″N7°34′28″E / 49.76222°N 7.57444°E /49.76222; 7.57444
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Bad Kreuznach
Municipal assoc.	Bad Sobernheim
Government
• Mayor(2019–24)	Ulrike Stroh[1]
Area
• Total	7.64 km2 (2.95 sq mi)
Elevation	270 m (890 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)[2]
• Total	294
• Density	38/km2 (100/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	55566
Dialling codes	06751
Vehicle registration	KH
Website	www.kirschroth.de

Kirschroth lies in a side valley of theNahe. Kirschroth's character stems from itsagricultural heritage, but it is nowadays a state-recognized tourism resort. It sits at an elevation of 260 m abovesea level, making it one of Rhineland-Palatinate's highest winegrowing villages. The municipal area measures 764 ha, of which 284 ha is wooded (140 ha of this is municipal woodland) and roughly 80 ha is given over tovineyards.^[4] The vineyards of the Kirschrother Wildgrafenberg border the village on the north and west.^[5]

Clockwise from the north, Kirschroth's neighbours are the municipalities ofMeddersheim,Bärweiler,Hundsbach,Limbach andMerxheim, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district.

In 1364, Kirschroth had its first documentary mention asRodde. It is certain, though, that it had already existed for quite some time, likely having arisen in theEarly Middle Ages. Traces of human habitation may indeed stretch all the way back toCeltic andRoman times. The village was held by theArchbishops of Mainz well into the 12th century before being pledged to the Counts of Saarbrücken, and then about 1275 to theWaldgraves at theKirburg. They then held it until theFrench Revolution in 1789. It was administered by aSchultheiß fromMainz who was subject to the castle count atDisibodenberg, or as of 1240 in Sobernheim and as of 1279 atCastle Böckelheim. In 1239, there was a serious dispute between the Archbishop and the counts in the Nahe area who opposed the ecclesiastical prince's quest for power in what they considered their domain. The local lordship over Kirschroth changed many times within the Waldgravial – and beginning in 1408 Waldgravial-Rhinegravial – family, because individual lines sometimes died out, arising from which were complicated divisions of inheritance. Until the 20th century,agriculture was the foremost income earner, and after that,winegrowing. In 1798, theFrench, to whom the Nahe area had finally fallen, set up their ownMairie (“Mayoralty”) of Meddersheim, which comprised the villages ofMeddersheim, Kirschroth andStaudernheim. After the French had been driven out andNapoleon had been definitively defeated, there came a short transitional time, thismairie, now called aBürgermeisterei (meaning the same thing inGerman) passed under the terms of theCongress of Vienna to the newOberamt of Meisenheim within the Landgraviate ofHesse-Homburg, passing once again along with this in 1866 to theGrand Dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt. They lost theOberamt to the Kingdom ofPrussia, which in 1869 made a small rural district out of it. In 1919, theAmt of Meddersheim was formed out of theBürgermeistereien of Meddersheim and Merxheim, but this was dissolved along with the Meisenheim district in 1932. Beginning in 1935, Kirschroth was in a kind of “personal union” with the town ofSobernheim, and as of 1940, it was fully joined with it in a newAmt called Sobernheim. In 1969, theAmt of Sobernheim became theVerbandsgemeinde of Sobernheim.^[6] In 1990, Kirschroth placed third at the state level in the contestUnser Dorf soll schöner werden (“Our village should become lovelier”).^[7]

Kirschroth's population development sinceNapoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:^[3]

As at 30 September 2013, there are 258 full-time residents in Kirschroth, and of those, 202 areEvangelical (78.295%), 19 areCatholic (7.364%), 1 (0.388%) belongs to another religious group and 36 (13.953%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.^[8]

The council is made up of 6 council members, who were elected bymajority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.^[9]

Kirschroth's mayor is Ulrike Stroh.^[1]

The German blazon reads:In rot-gold geschachtem Schild ein silberner Schrägrechtsbalken, belegt mit einem schreitenden roten Fuchs, der eine Weinrebe mit Blatt im Fang hält.

The municipality'sarms might in Englishheraldic language be described thus: Chequy gules and Or a bend argent, thereon a fox passant, in his mouth abunch of grapes slipped and leafed of one, all proper.

Beginning in 1520, Kirschroth belonged in equal shares to theWaldgraves’ Old Dhaun and Kyrburg lines. The twotinctures seen in the chequered field recall this. The chequered pattern itself is a reference to the village’s former allegiance to the Rhinegraves of Grumbach, to whom Kirschroth belonged until 1792. The fox stands for the termKirschrother Füchse (“Kirschroth foxes”) customary in the local speech, while thebunch of grapes stands for the all-important localwinegrowing.^[10]

The following are listed buildings or sites inRhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:^[11]

• Evangelicalchurch –Late Classicistaisleless church, red-sandstone-block, mid 19th century
• Limbacher Weg 4 –timber-frame house, partly solid, early 19th century
• Merxheimer Straße 3 – estate complex; timber-frame house with stable and produce storehouse, marked 1834, shed with timber-frame storehouse

Running to Kirschroth from the east isKreisstraße 62, and passing out of the village to the west is Bärweilerweg, which unaccountably leads toLimbach, notBärweiler. Running to the north isBundesstraße 41. ServingBad Sobernheim is arailway station on theNahe Valley Railway (Bingen–Saarbrücken).

• Municipality’s official webpage(in German)
• Kirschroth in the collective municipality’s webpages(in German)