Ingenheim is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Bas-Rhin

Bas-Rhin

Bas-Rhin is a department of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the Alsace region, with 1,079,013 inhabitants in 2006.- History :...

 department in Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 in north-eastern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

For the German, or Rhenish Palatinate, town, see Billigheim-Ingenheim

Billigheim-Ingenheim

Billigheim-Ingenheim is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....

.

The name

The earliest surviving record dates from 739 and names the village Ingenhaim. The first two syllables may comes from the Germanic

Alsatian language

Alsatian is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control many times.-Language family:...

 given/Christian name, "Ingo". "Heim" occurs frequently in place names in countries where the local language is or has been a dialect of German: it is from the same root as the English word "home" and may refer to a grouping of houses or to a farmstead.

History

Between 1802 and 1853 the village was the centre for a consistory

Consistory

-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....

 for Protestant communities in the surrounding settlements of Dettwiller

Dettwiller

Dettwiller is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

, Ernolsheim-lès-Saverne

Ernolsheim-lès-Saverne

Ernolsheim-lès-Saverne is a commune, in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

, Schwindratzheim

Schwindratzheim

Schwindratzheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

, Alteckendorf

Alteckendorf

Alteckendorf is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-Geography:Alteckendorf is located at an altitude of 117 metres above sea level, in between the Vosges Mountains and Germany. The Landsgraben stream, a tributary of the Zorn, flows through the village...

, Waltenheim-sur-Zorn

Waltenheim-sur-Zorn

Waltenheim-sur-Zorn is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It lies on the road D332 next to the Marne-Rhine Canal.-References:*...

 and Duntzenheim

Duntzenheim

Duntzenheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

. It lost out to Schwindratzheim

Schwindratzheim

Schwindratzheim is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...

 after 1852 when the parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 replaced the consistory as the defining organisational unit for protestant churches in France.