The municipality belonged from the 10th to 12th century to the Bishopric of Worms and passed thereafter as a fief to the Lords of Bolanden.

Since the Second World War, Dorn-Dürkheim has belonged to the newly founded federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, at first in the Alzey-Worms district.

The council is made up of 13 council members, counting the part-time mayor, with seats apportioned thus: (as at municipal election held on 13 June 2004) The municipality's arms might be described thus: Per fess sable a demi-lion rampant Or armed, langued and crowned gules, and azure a crozier from base issuant, the crook ending in a rose argent.

In 1972, one of Europe's richest mammalian fossil fields was discovered through pedological investigation at Dorn-Dürkheim, with many species from the Miocene.

In an oxbow of the ancient Rhine bone and tooth fragments were recovered from more than 70 mammalian species, among others sabre-toothed cats, hyenas, tapirs, muntjacs, dwarf deer, forest antelopes, forerunners of today's horses, and proboscideans from the time about 8.5 million years ago[4]