page_title: Altenburg
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Altenburg / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Blick in das Nikolaiviertel in Altenburg von der Dechanei aus
context_page_description: Altenburg is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located 40 kilometres south of Leipzig, 90 kilometres west of Dresden and 100 kilometres east of Erfurt. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district and part of a polycentric old-industrial textile and metal production region between Gera, Zwickau and Chemnitz with more than 1 million inhabitants, while the city itself has a population of 33,000. Today, the city and its rural county is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region.
  Altenburg was first mentioned in 976 and later became one of the first German cities within former Slavic area, east of the Saale river. The emperor Frederick Barbarossa visited Altenburg several times between 1165 and 1188, hence the town is named a Barbarossa town today. Since the 17th century, Altenburg was the residence of different Ernestine duchies, of whom the Saxe-Altenburg persisted until the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918. Industrialization reached Altenburg and the region quite early in the first half of the 19th century and flourished until the Great Depression around 1930.
caption: The Nikolai quarter is one of the oldest parts of Altenburg
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