Großkarlbach

Großkarlbach is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.GeographyLocationGroßkarlbach lies near the western edge of the Upper Rhine Plain and flowing through it is the river Eckbach. It is in the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration. In the municipality’s west rise the hills of what was once called the Unterhaardt, which since the 1970s has been considered part of the new Mittelhaardt-Deutsche Weinstraße winegrowing region. Großkarlbach belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Grünstadt-Land, whose seat is in Grünstadt, although that town is itself not in the Verbandsgemeinde.Neighbouring municipalitiesClockwise from the north, these are Laumersheim, Gerolsheim, Weisenheim am Sand, Freinsheim and Bissersheim.HistoryGroßkarlbach had a documentary mention as early as 768 in the Lorsch codex as Carlobach. Its name is described from its description as Dorf der Freien Karle (roughly “Village of free men”) and its location on the Eckbach. Since the municipality lay in the border area between Electoral Palatinate and territory held by the Counts of Leiningen, it was these two lordly houses that characterized Großkarlbach’s history.