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The city of Pirmasens is situated at an altitude of 395 m in the southwest of Germany's state of Rheinland-Pfalz, close the the French border.

According to the legend Pirmasens was founded by St Pirminius who came into this area in AD 742 and died at the monastery of Hornbach in 753. The first mention of "Pirminiseusna" dates from 860. For several centuries it remained a small village until in 1741 Landgrave Ludwig IX of Hesse-Darmstadt chose it as a residence and confered to it the status of a town in 1763. The garrison that had been founded by the landgrave in 1741 was dissolved by his successors in 1790. Many of the former sodiers became shoemakers and soon Pirmasens became a centre of this trade. During the Napoleonic times Pirmasens was part of the French département Mont-Tonnère (Donnersberg). After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the Palatinate became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816. During World War II the town suffered heavy damages and had to be rebuilt almost completely after the war. Pirmasens again became a centre of the shoe industry. Today Pirmasens is an independent city with a population of about 48,000 and is the seat of the administration of the district Südwestpfalz.

The Catholic parish church St. Pirminius [background right] was destroyed in 1945 during an Allied bomb raid of the city.