Herleshausen borders on the municipal area of the district-free town of Eisenach, whose main centre lies some 12 km east-southeast.

The community's eleven Ortsteile are Herleshausen, Wommen, Nesselröden, Breitzbach, Unhausen, Holzhausen, Markershausen, Altefeld, Archfeld, Willershausen and Frauenborn.

In 1019, Herleshausen had its first documentary mention in a donation document in which ownership was transferred to the Kaufungen Abbey, which then held the village until Secularization in 1521.

The community found itself on a much more public stage after the Second World War when a border checkpoint between East and West Germany was built near Herleshausen.

When the Wersebes' male line died out in 1678, the palace and the Herleshausen estate passed back to Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, who transferred it to his brother Philipp, first as a fief, and later to have as his own.