Großostheim (or Grossostheim) is a market community in the Aschaffenburg district in the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) in Bavaria, Germany. The inhabitants call themselves Aistmer (ostheimers).
Geography
Location
Großostheim lies on the northeast edge of the Odenwald in the Bavarian Lower Main (Bayerischer Untermain) region.
Constituent communities
Großostheim's Ortsteile are Großostheim, Pflaumheim, Wenigumstadt and Ringheim.
Neighbouring communities
Clockwise from the north, these are the community of Stockstadt, the district-free town of Aschaffenburg, the community of Niedernberg, the community of Mömlingen (both in Miltenberg district) and the community of Schaafheim (Darmstadt-Dieburg).
Together with Stockstadt am Main and the neighbouring Hessian community of Schaafheim, the market community forms the historic Bachgau region.
History
The market community of Großostheim, as a greater community, is made up of the constituent communities of Großostheim, Ringheim, Pflaumheim and Wenigumstadt. While Ringheim has always been part of Großostheim, the other two places, Pflaumheim and Wenigumstadt, have only been as much since municipal reform on 1 May 1978.
Ostheim, called Großostheim since the 18th century – groß is German for “great” or “big” – had its first documentary mention in a document from the Fulda Abbey dating from sometime between 780 and 799.
Ostheim belonged from the time of its first documentary mention to various lordly domains, before it passed along with the whole Bachgau to the Electorate of Mainz.
The constituent community of Ringheim gets its name from an older village that died out in the early 16th century. The Ringheimer Mühle – a mill, formerly an inn and a farmhouse – seems to be the last piece of property from the old Ringheim. The new Ringheim arose after 1945 on the lands of the former Luftwaffe base, in whose barracks and other buildings Germans driven out of their homelands were housed. Quick growth with industries locating in the new settlement has made of the initially small constituent community a considerable settlement today, which has become a desirable place to live.
The constituent community of Pflaumheim, despite lying right near the significant centre of Ostheim, had always been an independent community. It did, however, belong ecclesiastically as a branch parish to the parish of St. Peter and Paul in Großostheim. Only in 1923 did Pflaumheim, with its Kirche St. Luzia (church) become an independent parish. In 1994, Pflaumheim's 1,200-year jubilee was celebrated, as in 794 the Pflaumgau, and in the same era Pflaumheim itself, were named in documents handed down from the Lorsch and Fulda Abbeys.
The constituent community of Wenigumstadt had its first documentary mention in 1229 as villa Omestad minore. The village had, however, surely been settled much earlier, as the many archaeological finds from Wenigumstadt show a human presence from every cultural epoch in the last 7,000 years.
The former (until 1782) Electoral Mainz Vogteiamt (Vogt district) became in 1803 part of Archbishop-Elector of Mainz Karl von Dalberg's newly formed Electorate of Aschaffenburg, along with which, under the terms of the Treaties of Paris, it passed in 1814 (by this time it had become a department of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt) to Bavaria.
In the course of administrative reform in Bavaria, the current community came into being with the Gemeindeedikt (“Municipal Edict”) of 1818.
Population development
Within the municipal area lived 12,788 inhabitants in 1970, 13,514 in 1987, 15,913 in 2000 and 16,299 in 2004.
Politics
The mayor is Herbert Jakob (CSU), elected in April 2014 and re-elected in 2020.
The income from municipal taxes in 1999 amounted to €9,751,000 (converted) of which net intake from business taxes amounted to €3,180,000.
Coat of arms
The community's arms might be described thus: Party per fess Or and sable, a buck salient of the second langued gules and couped at the thigh, and three trefoils slipped argent.