The municipality lies at the north edge of the Palatinate Forest between the Haardt range in the south and the Autobahn A 6 in the north in the Leiningerland at an elevation of 285 m above sea level. Carlsberg belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Leiningerland, whose seat is in Grünstadt. The outlying centre of Hertlingshausen lies in the northern Palatinate Forest and is crossed by the river Eckbach, which rises in the part of the municipal area known as Kleinfrankreich. Since Carlsberg is a scattered settlement, it is not possible to say where Hertlingshausen ends and the main centre begins.
Constituent communities
Carlsberg's Ortsteile are Carlsberg and Hertlingshausen.
History
In 1754, Carlsberg, originally a dispersed settlement, had its first documentary mention. Count Georg II of Leiningen had a new settlement laid out in a clearing in the early 18th century for Huguenots who had fled persecution, and in 1726 he named it after his son Georg Karl I August Ludwig of Leiningen-Westerburg-Neuleiningen. Older than Carlsberg itself is its outlying centre of Hertlingshausen. As of 1160 there was an Augustinian convent in Hertlingshausen as a branch of the Höningen Monastery. This had its first documentary mention in 1212 as Hertingeshausen. After a great fire in 1460 and a sacking in 1520, the convent was forsaken. The local lore has it that the village of Hertlingshausen was built out of the convent's stones in 1585. After the Second World War, both Carlsberg and Hertlingshausen belonged to the now abolished district of Frankenthal. In the course of administrative reform in Rhineland-Palatinate, Hertlingshausen was amalgamated with Carlsberg on 7 June 1969 and the new, merged municipality was at the same time put in the newly formed district of Bad Dürkheim. In 1972, Carlsberg was grouped into the new Verbandsgemeinde of Hettenleidelheim. Hertlingshausen's old coat of arms also became Carlsberg's.
Politics
Municipal council
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:
The municipality's arms might be described thus: Gules a cross pattée Or, in dexter chief a fleur-de-lis argent, in sinister chief an eagle displayed of the same, issuant from dexter base a lance bendwise sinister of the second, and issuant from sinister base a firtree palewise vert. The arms were approved on 25 February 1970 by the now abolished Regierungsbezirk of Rheinhessen-Pfalz in Neustadt an der Weinstraße and match those approved by the Ministry of the Interior in Mainz in 1963 and formerly borne by Hertlingshausen, which had become part of Carlsberg on 15 January 1969. The old Leiningen-Westerburg village of Hertlingshausen arose out of the like-named convent. The lily refers to the nuns. The gold cross pattée on the red field recalls the Westerburg lordship while the eagle is the charge once borne by the House of Leiningen, who also once held sway here. The lance and the firtree are simply references to the “wild and forest” and are meant to characterize the municipality's scenic location.
