Duchroth (German pronunciation: [ˈduːxʁoːt]) is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Rüdesheim, whose seat is in the like-named town. Duchroth is a winegrowing centre and lies in the Soonwald-Nahe Nature Park.

Duchroth lies 240 m above sea level in the Rheingrafenstein local recreation area, south of the Hunsrück, between the spa town of Bad Kreuznach and the gemstone town of Idar-Oberstein, not far from neighbouring Odernheim am Glan, where the Glan empties into the Nahe.

Clockwise from the north, Duchroth's neighbours are the municipality of Waldböckelheim, the municipality of Schloßböckelheim, the municipality of Oberhausen an der Nahe, the municipality of Hallgarten, the town of Obermoschel, the municipality of Lettweiler, the municipality of Odernheim am Glan, the municipality of Staudernheim and the municipality of Boos. All lie in the Bad Kreuznach district but Obermoschel, which lies in the neighbouring Donnersbergkreis.

Also belonging to Duchroth are the outlying homesteads of Dimrotherhof, Hof Schönblick and Montforterhof.

Yearly precipitation in Duchroth amounts to 633 mm, which is rather low, falling into the lowest third of the precipitation chart for all Germany. Only at 27% of the German Weather Service's weather stations are even lower figures recorded. The driest month is February. The most rainfall comes in June. In that month, precipitation is 1.7 times what it is in February. Precipitation varies hardly at all throughout the year. At only 15% of the weather stations are lower seasonal swings recorded.

From prehistoric times and early history, sporadic archaeological finds have come to light. The Celts built their barrows, while the Romans left the foundations of one of their country estates as well as a graveyard in what is now the vineyard location known as “Feuerberg”. From about 900 to 1100, Duchroth belonged to the Archfoundation of Mainz (Mainzer Erzstift), and thereafter until 1158 to the Counts of Saarbrücken. In 1128, Duchroth had its first documentary mention in a document issued by Archbishop Adalbert I, wherein Duchroth was named as Royde. What is of particular interest about this document is that it deals with the time of Archbishop Willigis’s reign as Archbishop of Mainz, which began in 975. The terms of the document obliged Duchroth to maintain part of Saint Mary’s Chapel on the Disibodenberg. It is thus believed that Duchroth had existed at least since 900. The first time when somebody from Duchroth was mentioned in a document was in 1107 when one of Archbishop Ruthard’s documents mentioned a man named “Wernherus de Royde”. He was some unknown lord's vassal and a ministerialis, and as such loomed up over everybody else in the village. This document is, however, not seen as the village's first documentary mention, even though it is 21 years older than Adalbert's, and “de Royde” is taken only as a description of the man's origins. From 1158 to 1274, Duchroth's inhabitants were subjects of the Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken, and thereafter and until 1394, Duchroth belonged to the Knights of Montfort. Later still, from 1395 to 1410, the village found itself under Elector Palatine Ruprecht III's administration, before it passed to the Dukes of Zweibrücken, under whom it remained until 1779. Duke Stephan of Zweibrücken, Elector Palatine Ruprecht's successor, demanded of his vassals an oath of fealty and loyalty. The Montforts, however – the vassals in question – would have none of it and would not even acknowledge Stephan as their overlord, and nor would they take the oath of homage. Stephan would not tolerate this and advanced with his men from Meisenheim to Duchroth. The Montforts had shut the village gates and had ensconced themselves along with the peasants behind the village moat. The Duchrother Krieg – the Duchroth War – had begun. Since the Elector Palatine had chosen to join in, the Montforts gave in, but not before there had been deaths and other casualties on both sides as well as sacking and fires in the village. Friedrich von Montfort had wisely kept himself out of the fight, and on 9 July 1418, he was installed as Amtmann over Duchroth. In the 16th century, the town hall was built, and it is now one of the oldest in Rhineland-Palatinate. The time from 1618 to 1734 was a time of war – the Thirty Years' War and King Louis XIV's wars of conquest – and its attendant upheaval, including economic hardship. This led to many people from Duchroth choosing emigration as the solution to their woes. Off they went to Russia, America or Southeast Europe (Bačka, Banat). Johann Eimann from Duchroth was a pioneer among settlers and founded Bačka's settlement history. Eimann also drew the 1798 village map that accompanies this article, from memory, after he went to live in Bačka. The village structure shown in his map is to a great extent unchanged today. In the latter half of the 18th century, Duchroth was forced by its overlord, Christian IV, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken, to participate in the lottery for building the Zweibrücken Ducal suburb. It was indeed the village's lot that came up. What was won was a building at Herzogsplatz (“Duke’s Square”). This was sold forthwith and the proceeds were used for a weeklong celebration. From 1779 to 1801, Duchroth belonged to Electoral Palatinate, and from 1801 to 1814, it was under Napoleonic French rule, followed until 1816 by two years of military rule. In that year, under the terms of the Congress of Vienna, Duchroth passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria, which had been awarded a great exclave in the Palatinate. This lasted until 1918 when the kingdom itself met its end when the Kaiser was overthrown and along with him Bavaria's last king. Duchroth belonged to the Free State of Bavaria, however, until after the Second World War, when Bavaria's Palatine exclave was grouped into the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. At the time of the Revolutions of 1848, a great many Duchroth inhabitants stood on the freedom fighters’ side. This national movement, which had begun with so much hope, came to a sad end. In Duchroth, the punishment took the form of a company of Bavarian riflemen being billeted in the village. Duchroth men also fought in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945). A remembrance to the war dead are the monuments near the church. In 1868 and 1869, a new road was built to Odernheim am Glan so that people would no longer have to take the exhausting path across the “Heath”. One of the worst catastrophes in the village's history was the great fire on Sunday 23 July 1905, in which the church, the rectory, the Schloss and many other buildings burnt down. The new church, built to replace the one destroyed that day, was consecrated on 4 September 1910. In 1947, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate was newly founded, which at first let all administrative bodies stand. In the course of administrative restructuring in 1969, an end was put to the local administrative arrangement that had stood since 1798 on 7 June of that year. The Bürgermeisterei (“Mayoralty”) of Odernheim was dissolved and Duchroth passed to the new Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. There was also a change of district, with Duchroth being transferred from the Rockenhausen district (which was itself dissolved) to the Bad Kreuznach district. Ecclesiastically, Duchroth belongs, as it long has, to the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. In 2012, in the contest Unser Dorf hat Zukunft (“Our village has a future”), Duchroth placed second in the special category at the state level, being outdone only by Kerpen.

Duchroth's population development since Napoleonic times is shown in the table below. The figures for the years from 1871 to 1987 are drawn from census data:

As at 31 August 2013, there are 560 full-time residents in Duchroth, and of those, 410 are Evangelical (73.214%), 68 are Catholic (12.143%), 5 belong to the Palatinate State Free Religious Community (0.893%), 11 (1.964%) belong to other religious groups and 66 (11.786%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation.