Gernsheim

Gernsheim lies south-west of Darmstadt on the eastern bank of the Rhine in the Rhine Main Region. Geographically it is part of the "Hessisches Ried". Gernsheim includes the Allmendfeld and Klein-Rohrheim districts.

The town of Gernsheim developed from a 1st century Roman settlement. The first documented evidence of the name Gernsheim dates from 852. In 1356 it received its town charter. Peter Schöffer, who was a colleague of Johannes Gutenberg, was born in Gernsheim in 1425. He is the origin of Gernsheim's nickname "Schöfferstadt".

The town's landmark is the baroque church with its characteristic onion dome.

The Rhineland Fishermen's Festival, a large public festival, has been celebrated in Gernsheim since 1948.

There was once supposedly a place called Lochheim on the sharp bend in the Rhine near Gernsheim that was flooded in the 13th century and never rebuilt. The Nibelungenlied is reputedly referring to this place when it says that the ring had sunk "ze Loche".

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