PIRMASENS, a town of Germany, in the Bavarian Palatinate, 40 m. W. by S. of Spires, on the railway from Biebermühle. Pop. (1905), 34,002. The only noteworthy buildings are the town-hall and the principal Evangelical church, which contains a fine monumcnt to Louis IX. (d. 1790), landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who made the town his residence. The staple industry is the production of boots and shoes; but musical instruments, leather and machines are also manufactured. Pirmasens owes its name to a St Pirmin, who is said to have preached Christianity here in the Sth century. It originally belonged to the count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, but passed to Hesse-Darmstadt in 1736. In September 1793 the Prussians gained a victory here over a body of French troops.
See T. Weiss, Pirmasens in der Franzosenzeit (Pirmasens, 1905).