Hamm am Rhein

Hamm am Rhein
Coat of arms
Hamm am Rhein
Location of Hamm am Rhein within Alzey-Worms district
Coordinates: 49°43′45″N 08°25′50″E / 49.72917°N 8.43056°E / 49.72917; 8.43056Coordinates: 49°43′45″N 08°25′50″E / 49.72917°N 8.43056°E / 49.72917; 8.43056
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Alzey-Worms
Municipal assoc.	Eich
Government
• Mayor	Volker Luckas (SPD)
Area
• Total	7.89 km2 (3.05 sq mi)
Elevation	87 m (285 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	2,064
• Density	260/km2 (680/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	67580
Dialling codes	06246
Vehicle registration	AZ
Website	www.vg-eich.de

Hamm am Rhein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The municipality lies in Rhenish Hesse and belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Eich, whose seat is in the like-named municipality.

The municipality’s special charm finds its roots in its location right on the Rhine, or rather on a sidestream called the Schadegrawe, which is cut off from the Rhine’s mainstream by an island, the Wörth (this word is a local variant of the German word Werder, which often means, as in this case, an island in a river; its English equivalent might be “ait” or “holm”). The name “Schadegrawe” is a dialectal pronunciation of the Standard High German “Scheidegraben” (“Parting Dyke”) between Hamm’s and Ibersheim’s municipal areas.

Within the Verbandsgemeinde of Eich, Hamm am Rhein has the longest stretch of the Rhine within its limits.

On the Rhineland-Palatinate side, Hamm neighbours the municipality of Eich and Ibersheim, a suburb of the city of Worms. On the Hessian side lies the town of Gernsheim, to which Hamm is linked by ferry.

In 782, Hamm had its first documentary mention in the Lorsch codex. The name Hamm means “lying at the river’s side or bend”.