Mertesheim

Mertesheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Location
The municipality lies in the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Leiningerland, whose seat is in Grünstadt, although that town is itself not in the Verbandsgemeinde.

History
In 771, Meldrisheim had its first documentary mention.

It is mentioned in the Wormser wall-building ordinance from around 900 as one of the places that shared responsibility for maintaining the city wall of Worms.

Until 1969 it belonged to the now abolished district of Frankenthal. Currently it is in the district of Bad Dürkheim, and it joined the newly formed Verbandsgemeinde of Grünstadt-Land in 1972.

Religion
In 2007, 43.5% of the inhabitants were Catholic and 35.3% Evangelical. The rest belonged to other faiths or adhered to none.

Municipal council
The council is made up of 8 council members, who were elected by majority vote at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor
The mayor of Mertesheim is Kurt Waßner, elected in June 2019.

Coat of arms
The German blazon reads: In Rot auf grünem Dreiberg ein schreitender widersehender silberner Hirsch mit einem goldenen Wiederkreuz statt des Geweihs.

The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Gules on a mount of three in base vert a stag passant reguardant argent unguled Or with a cross crosslet of the same instead of attires.

The German blazon, however, does not mention the stag's golden hooves (“unguled Or”).

The arms were approved in 1926 by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior and date from a 16th-century seal.

Transport
Mertesheim lies on the Eis Valley Railway, which runs between Grünstadt and Ramsen and is served by scheduled Regionalbahn trains. Public transport is integrated into the VRN, whose fares therefore apply.