page_title: Free Imperial City of Nuremberg
section_title: Territory
hierarchical_section_title: Free Imperial City of Nuremberg / Territory
caption_attribution_description: Innenhof der Festung in Lichtenau (MFR), Deutschland
context_page_description: The Imperial City of Nuremberg was a free imperial city — independent city-state — within the Holy Roman Empire. After Nuremberg gained piecemeal independence from the Burgraviate of Nuremberg in the High Middle Ages and considerable territory from Bavaria in the Landshut War of Succession, it grew to become one of the largest and most important Imperial cities, the 'unofficial capital' of the Empire, particularly because Imperial Diets and courts met at Nuremberg Castle. The Diets of Nuremberg were an important part of the administrative structure of the Empire. The Golden Bull of 1356, issued by Emperor Charles IV, named Nuremberg as the city where newly elected kings of Germany must hold their first Imperial Diet, making Nuremberg one of the three highest cities of the Empire.
  The cultural flowering of Nuremberg, in the 15th and 16th centuries, made it the center of the German Renaissance.
context_section_description: The Imperial City comprised some 1,200 square kilometres (460 sq mi), making it one of the largest imperial cities territories; after the Imperial City of Bern left to join the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1353, only the Imperial Cities of Ulm and Strasbourg had anything like the same amount of land. The area was divided into the Old and New Districts (German: Alte Landschaft and Neue Landschaft). The Old District, which also included Imperial forests (German: Nürnberger Reichswald), was a conglomeration of lordships and possessions of Nuremberg burghers, monasteries and social facilities. That high justice (Zentgericht and Freigericht) was administered by the burgraviate — and subsequently the margraviates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Bayreuth — was a source of constant conflict. The New District is made up of the territory gained by Nuremberg in the Landshut War of Succession; in this territory, the city had full sovereignty. In 1790, around 25,000 lived with city walls and a further 35,000 in the extramural territories of the city.
  The territorial expansion of imperial cities since the mid-14th century had several general causes, all found in the case of Nuremberg — the weakness of imperial power and an inability to maintain law and order; the debt crisis of neighbouring landed and knightly nobles in comparison with the capital income of the burgeoning urban middle classes; and the growing need for cities to secure an adequate supply of food for its inhabitants, raw materials for its craftsmen, and military self-protection. Before the end of the 18th century, with Bavarian and Prussian annexation of Nuremberger territory, the city territory was as described below:
caption: The inner courtyard of the castle at Lichtenau (German: Festung Lichtenau).
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "Image Model": "C720UZ", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "144", "Image YResolution": "144", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:21 23:24:40", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "862", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5541", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:04:12 14:33:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:04:12 14:33:21", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "2", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "32/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1407", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1913", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "736", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}