| Image Coa: | DEU Elmstein COA.svg |
| Coordinates: | 49.3506°N 7.94°W |
| Image Plan: | Elmstein in DÜW.svg |
| State: | Rheinland-Pfalz |
| District: | Bad Dürkheim |
| Verbandsgemeinde: | Lambrecht (Pfalz) |
| Elevation: | 225 |
| Area: | 75.69 |
| Postal Code: | 67471 |
| Area Code: | 06328, 06306 |
| Licence: | DÜW |
| Gemeindeschlüssel: | 07 3 32 050 |
| Divisions: | 10 |
| Website: | www.elmstein.de |
| Mayor: | Rene Verdaasdonk[1] |
| Leader Term: | 2019 - 24 |
| Party: | SPD |
Elmstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Elmstein lies in the Palatinate Forest. The municipality belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Lambrecht, whose seat is in the like-named town.
Elmstein's Ortsteile are, besides the namesake one, Appenthal, Erlenbach, Harzofen, Helmbach, Iggelbach, Mückenwiese, Röderthal, Schafhof, Schwabenbach, Schwarzbach, Stilles Tal, Speyerbrunn and Wolfsgrube.
Clockwise from the northwest, these are Waldleiningen, Weidenthal, Esthal, an exclave of Kirrweiler, an exclave of Venningen, an exclave of Rhodt unter Rietburg, an exclave of Edesheim, an exclave of Landau in der Pfalz, Wilgartswiesen, Trippstadt and Kaiserslautern.
Elmstein arose from the Castle Elmstein, which itself was built in the 12th century by the Counts Palatine of the Rhine. The outlying centres arose later, mostly as extension settlements for lumberjacks, as a location of a sawmill or, like Röderthal, as a mining settlement.
On 1 January 1976, a centre with 207 inhabitants was transferred from the municipality of Wilgartswiesen to Elmstein.
In 2007, 51.5% of the inhabitants were Evangelical and 30.3% were Catholic. One peculiarity is the Free Religious Community founded in 1921, which with a roughly 5% share of the population stands as the Palatinate’s second biggest Free Religious Community. The rest practised other faiths or none.[2]
The council is made up of 20 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.
The municipal election held on 7 June 2009 yielded the following results:[3]
| Independent | WG Herter | Total | ||||
| 2009 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 6 | 20 seats | |
| 2004 | 9 | 9 | 2 | - | 20 seats |
The German blazon reads: In Silber zwei gekreuzte rote Doppelhaken, bewinkelt von vier sechsstrahligen goldenen Sternen.
The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Argent two cramps per cross gules, the one per fess surmounting the one per pale, between four mullets Or.
The arms were approved by the Reich governor in Bavaria (of which the Palatinate was an outlying part until after the Second World War) and date from a 1772 seal. The “forest hooks” refer to Elmstein's location in the middle of the forest (this charge is generally known as a “cramp” or “crampoon” in English heraldry, and is held to be a kind of brace for strengthening a building[4]). It is unknown, however, what the mullets (stars) mean.[5]
Running from Neustadt an der Weinstraße to Elmstein is the heritage railway known as the Kuckucksbähnel (Little Cuckoo Railway).
The municipality can be reached on Landesstraße (State Road) 499 from either Johanniskreuz or Frankeneck
Moreover, there is a bus link with route 517 (Neustadt an der Weinstraße to Iggelbach). The travel time on the bus is roughly an hour.
Owing to the many motorcycle accidents in the past, the road through the Elmstein valley (Johanniskreuz–Elmstein–Lambrecht) is closed to motorcycles on weekends from April to October; only residents – not even other locals – may drive motorcycles on this stretch of highway at these times.