Ahrem is a little village in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 near Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

. Ahrem is now part of the town Erftstadt

Erftstadt

Erftstadt is a town located about 20 km south-west of Cologne in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The name of the town derives from the river which flows through it, the Erft...

. Geographical location 50°47′N 6°46′E, population 1,103 (2003).

The first written documentation about Ahrem was in 1256, when the archbishop of Cologne mentions Ainhem. However the name of the village points to roots in the time of the Franks

Franks

The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...

; it means "village of Arn (or Arno)". This dating is supported by a cemetery which was dated to the 6th century.

Ahrem belonged to the clerical state of Cologne, in the Amt Lechenich. Originally it was a few separated farm buildings, but during the centuries grew a core settlement around the main street and the small brook Lechenicher Mühlengraben. The village remained small - in 1801 it had just 215 citizens.

During the communal reform of 1969 the village was incorporated into the new city of Erftstadt.