Gudensberg is located at the extreme southeastern tip of the Habichtswald Nature Park about 20 km south of Kassel and ten kilometers northeast of Fritzlar (distances in each case as the crow flies). While the core city and the district Maden are flowed through by the Ems tributary Goldbach, the southwestern district Dorla and the southern district Obervorschütz are located on the Eder tributary Ems.

In Grünstadt there was a Jewish community until 1940. Its origin goes back to the time of the 17th century For the first time a Jewish person from Grünstadt is mentioned on the occasion of their admission in the Franconian Leutershausen (district Ansbach) in 1612. At the end of the 17th century a Jewishcommunity in Grünstadt is mentioned for the first time in a document from 1698, which had made a larger collection to the Mannheim community after the fire of 1689.