Arheilgen is a district in the north of the city of

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, incorporated in 1937. Arheilgen borders the Darmstadt district of Wixhausen to the North, to the West is the town of Weiterstadt, to the East is the Darmstadt district of Kranichstein and to the South is the city center of Darmstadt.

History

The actual settlement probably began in the second half of the first millennium, when a number of Frankish settlements arose in the Rhine-Main-Neckar area. The place name in its old spelling "Araheiligon" is mentioned for the first time in an undated interest register of Seligenstadt Abbey, which an unknown scribe probably added to a 9th-century gospel book of the monastery around the year 1000. The

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

shook Arheilgen hard. As early as 1622, the troops of Count von Mansfeld robbed all the houses and the church. In January 1635, the village was almost completely burned down by French troops. Only a few houses remained. The surviving residents fled behind the supposedly safe walls of nearby Darmstadt, where many of them died of the plague. At the end of the war in 1648, only about 12 families were left to rebuild the community.

Seal and coat of arms

The coat of arms of the town developed from the court seal, the oldest surviving impression of which dates from 1636. The upper half shows the half figure of Saint Kilian, patron saint of the Franks, to whom the original Arheilgen church was dedicated. Beneath it are lying glasses, a

Wolfsangel (, translation "wolf's hook") or () is a heraldic charge from mainly Germany and eastern France, which was inspired by medieval European wolf traps that consisted of a Z-shaped metal hook (called the ''Wolfsangel'', or the ''crampon'' in F ...

and two hexagonal stars. The origin of these symbols is still unclear.

Economy

South of Arheilgen is the site of the world's oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company,

Merck KGaA The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German Multinational corporation, multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and a presence in 66 countries. The group include ...

. The company is the largest employer in the region and supports both schools and clubs there. In agriculture,

asparagus Asparagus (''Asparagus officinalis'') is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus (genus), Asparagus'' native to Eurasia. Widely cultivated as a vegetable crop, its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. Description ...

cultivation dominates.

Transport

Railways

Darmstadt-Arheilgener Bahnhof- auf Bahnsteig- Richtung Frankfurt am Main 24

Darmstadt-Arheilgen station is on the

Main-Neckar Railway The Main-Neckar Railway (, MNE) is a main line railway west of the Odenwald in the Upper Rhine Plain of Germany that connects Frankfurt am Main to Heidelberg via Darmstadt, Bensheim and Weinheim. It was opened in 1846 and is one of the oldest r ...

and was opened in 1848. It is station number 1130 and is served by line S6 of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn.

Trams and buses

Lines 6 and 8 of the Darmstadt tram network link Arheilgen to the city center. The tram route opened in 1890 as a steam tram service and was electrified between 1924 and 1926. Bus lines WX and 662 also serve Arheilgen.

Roads

The freeways A5 and 67 are to the west of town. The main roads through the town are B3 in north–south direction and B26 in west–east direction.

Boroughs of Darmstadt

Darmstadt has 9 official 'Stadtteile' (

boroughs A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

). These are, alphabetically:Statistischer Ueberblick
('Statistical overview', from the official city website, in German) *Darmstadt-Arheilgen * Darmstadt-Bessungen *

Darmstadt-Eberstadt Eberstadt is the southernmost borough of Darmstadt in Hessen, Germany with a population of 23,728 (). Geography In the north Eberstadt borders the boroughs of Bessungen and Darmstadt-West, in the east and south the municipalities of Mühltal ...

* Darmstadt-Kranichstein *Darmstadt-Mitte ('Central') *Darmstadt-Nord ('North') *Darmstadt-Ost ('East') *Darmstadt-West ('West') *Darmstadt- Wixhausen

References

External links

Official website of the city of Darmstadt
(German and parts in English)
Map of the City of Darmstadt-Arheilgen, with bus and tram stops
{{Authority control Arheilgen Merck Group