Oppenheim

Oppenheim lies beside the Upper Rhine between Mainz and Worms. Granted market rights in 1008, it became a free imperial city in 1225, with an imperial castle above the town. In the fourteenth century it was pledged to the Electorate of Mainz, and from 1398 it belonged to the Electoral Palatinate. Its Gothic church of Saint Catherine reflects the town's medieval importance.

Spanish troops occupied Oppenheim in 1620 during the Thirty Years' War, and a fire damaged the town hall in 1621. In 1689 French forces destroyed the town and Landskrone Castle during the Nine Years' War. Oppenheim remained under the Palatinate until the revolutionary era, passing to Hesse-Darmstadt in 1816 after French rule.