About Kirchheimbolanden – the Small Residence
Kirchheimbolanden, or as the locals say, Kibo or Kerchem, is located between Kaiserslautern and Mainz, directly on Napoleon’s former Imperial Road, today’s L401. The town stretches about three kilometers from north to south. It nestles around the wooded mountain and, with its new development areas, climbs the adjacent heights. A town for over 600 years, Kirchheimbolanden acquired its medieval fortifications under the Counts of Sponheim and its charming Baroque character under the Princes of Nassau-Weilburg. In the last century, it was the seat of a district commission, and since 1900, a district capital.
© Text: Klaus Kremb
Kirchheimbolanden – the Small Residence
Starting from the sign on the A63, the view of the city opens up: In the foreground, the city; in the middle ground, the Schillerhain; and in the background, the 687 m high Donnersberg. These also represent 280 million years of geology, as that is how old the Donnersberg, formed as a sub-volcano in the Paleozoic Era, is.
Igneous rock – technically rhyolite – thus defines the background. The middle ground is no less spectacular in terms of geological history, as the Schillerhain, Kirchheimbolanden’s local mountain, was the coastal edge of the former Upper Rhenish Tertiary Sea 30 million years ago.
And the hilly surface forms in the foreground are the result of modern sedimentation and erosion processes. This geological pattern can be studied very well from the Bischeimer Höhe.
Modern Kirchheimbolanden
Historical Perspectives on the City
1368
1777
1778
1792
19th Century
Under the rule of the Nassau-Weilburg princely couples Carl August and Frederike Wilhelmine, as well as Carl Christian and Karoline, Kirchheimbolanden was developed into a Baroque residential city.