Kirchardt

History

The first signs of human activity in the area date from the Bronze Age, but the earliest settlement to be detected so far was Celtic, from the sixth century B.C.E. From 90 to 260 C.E., the occupying Romans constructed streets and buildings in various parts of civitas alisinensis (the area which would later become Elsenzgau) to support the Neckar-Odenwald limes. A villa rustica from that era was uncovered in Kirchardt in 1832, as well as a farmstead with a deep well. An important Roman road ran through what is now Berwangen, where a Jupiter Column was also found. With the withdrawal of the Romans from the east of Rhine and the concurrent arrival of the Alemanni, the buildings crumbled completely. Kirchardt and its constituent communities, like many cities and towns in Northern Württemberg and North Baden, was first mentioned by name in the Codex Aureus of Lorsch in 791. A nun by the name of Egilrat recorded the transfer of a farm with associated land in villa Kyrih-Hart to the ownership of Lorsch Abbey. The name is a unique one for an uninhabited area, and means perhaps "church in the wood" or "forest belonging to a church", but more likely indicates "the forest where the red kites live". The first mentions of the other two communities in modern-day Kirchardt also occur in the codex, both in connection with donations to the abbey, Berwangen being recorded in 793, and Bockschaft in 829. The appellation villa denoted that Kirchardt was then a small community not long settled. As the earliest settled areas in Kirchardt lie on the old northern boundary with the district of Berwangen as well as the source of the Birkenbach stream, it is likely that Kirchardt was settled from the older and formerly more significant Berwangen. In the Early Middle Ages there was a road (then…

Geography

Kirchardt is in the north-west of Heilbronn and belongs to the outskirts of the Stuttgart Metropolitan Region. Starting in the north and proceeding in a clockwise direction, the neighbouring towns and cities of Kirchardt are Bad Rappenau, Massenbachhausen, Gemmingen, Eppingen, Ittlingen (all in the Heilbronn region) and Sinsheim (in the Rhein-Neckar region). Kirchardt is part of a unified community authority which also consists of Bad Rappenau and Siegelsbach. The town of Kirchardt has approximately 5,500 inhabitants, of which 3,700 live in Kirchardt itself, with 1,400 in Berwangen and 400 people in Bockschaft.

Most-observed species

• Zoropsid spider

  Zoropsis spinimana (Dufour, 1820) · Arachnida
  1,718
• Common Buzzard

  Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,301
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,270
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,240
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,111
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,012
• Eurasian Kestrel

  Falco tinnunculus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  957
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  938

Most recent

• M 3.4 — 2022-10-16
  Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany
• M 4 — 2022-07-09
  2 km NNE of Grosselfingen, Germany
• M 3.6 — 2014-05-17
  2 km ESE of Pfungstadt, Germany
• M 2.5 — 2008-12-12
  2 km ESE of Nehren, Germany
• M 2.8 — 2008-11-25
  1 km S of Steinmauern, Germany
• M 2.7 — 2008-07-09
  1 km WSW of Dußlingen, Germany