Riedstadt, with its municipal area of 73.76 km² is Groß-Gerau district's biggest town by land area. It lies in Hesse, Germany, about 12 km southwest of Darmstadt. Geography Location Riedstadt is shaped not only by its preserved rural structure, but also by being near several cities, namely Frankfurt am Main, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Mainz, and Mannheim. As its name suggests, it lies in the Hessisches Ried, the northeastern section of the Rhine rift. The community practises the structured settlement of environmentally friendly business operations. Local recreation sites near the community include the Kühkopf-Knoblochsaue nature reserve, the Bergstraße, the Odenwald, and the Taunus. Neighbouring communities Riedstadt borders in the north on the community of Trebur and the town of Groß-Gerau, in the east on the towns of Griesheim and Pfungstadt (both in Darmstadt-Dieburg), in the south on the town of Gernsheim and the communities of Biebesheim and Stockstadt am Rhein, and in the west on the communities of Ludwigshöhe and Dienheim as well as the town of Oppenheim (all 3 in Mainz-Bingen). Constituent communities Riedstadt consists of the centres Crumstadt, Erfelden, Goddelau, Leeheim, and Wolfskehlen. History Amalgamations The community came into being on 1 January 1977 with Hesse's municipal reforms, which merged the formerly independent communities of Goddelau, Wolfskehlen (which had already merged voluntarily with Goddelau in 1973), Erfelden, Crumstadt, and Leeheim. Erfelden Erfelden was first mentioned in a donation document from the Lorsch Monastery in 779. In the Thirty Years' War, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden spent two nights at the mayor's house in 1631 while his troops were crossing the Rhine. His building master Matthäus Staud built the Schwedensäule ("Swedes' column") at Erfelden which recalls the crossing. Goddelau Goddelau was first mentioned in a donation document when Count Gundram donated his property "in Terminis Gotalohono" to Fulda Abbey. Over the centuries, the village was shaped by its dwellers' agricultural and handicraft activities. In 1588 there were roughly 180 inhabitants in Goddelau. The house in which writer and revolutionary Georg Büchner would later be born was built in 1665, and still stands today. Leeheim Leeheim was first mentioned in the Lorsch codex in 766 when a man named Dodo made a donation to the Lorsch Monastery. Near the earlier village of Camba, the Salian Conrad II was chosen to be German King in 1024. Leeheim was shaped by several monastic properties, belonging to, among others, St. Alban's Monastery in Mainz. The