Marbach am Neckar is a town about 20 kilometres north of
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...
. It belongs to the district of
Ludwigsburg, the
Stuttgart region and the
European metropolitan region of Stuttgart. Marbach is known as the birthplace of
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendsh ...
, to whom it owes the additional designation of ''Schiller City'', which it has officially held since 2022.
The town is home to the
Schiller National Museum, the
German Literature Archive
The Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA - German Literature Archive), established in 1955, in Marbach am Neckar, is one of the most significant literary archives in the world. Its collections span literary and intellectual history from 1750 t ...
and the
Modern Literature Museum.
Geography
Geographical location
Marbach is located in the
Neckar Basin on the eastern bank of a loop of the Neckar, whose impact slope is interrupted by two deep
cuts. The northern of the two cuts is flowed through by the largely blocked Strenzelbach stream, the southern by the Eichgraben ditch. Marbach's old town lies on the southern slope of the Strenzelbach valley, some 30 metres above the Neckar, while the newer residential and commercial areas are spread across the slopes further to the north-east, east and south. Even further south, somewhat secluded by the cutting of the Eichgraben, is the residential area of Hörnle with about 1600 inhabitants. The furrow formed by the Strenzelbach cuts short a loop of the
Murr, which flows into the Neckar just north of the town, and forms an important traffic axis for Marbach and the surrounding area.
Districts and exclaves
In addition to the immediate surroundings of the
Inner City, the urban area includes a narrow strip extending southwest along the Neckar River and incorporating the
Marbach power plant.
Furthermore, three
exclaves belong to the urban area. Two of them are the districts of Rielingshausen and Siegelhausen, both of which are spatially separated from Marbach. While the area of the core town itself is almost free of forest, the largest part of the forest area of Marbach comprises the uninhabited exclave in the Hardtwald to the north-east of the district of Rielingshausen, which is assigned to the Schwäbisch-Fränkische Waldberge natural area.
Rielingshausen, with about 2800 inhabitants, is located about five kilometres northeast of Marbach on a hill between the Murr and the Hardtwald. The hamlet of Hinterbirkenhof, one and a half kilometres to the north, also belongs to the village. The district is divided by several stream valleys, all of which lead to the Murr. The village centre lies in the shallow hollow of the Weidenbach, while the Kaisersbach forms a depression between Rielingshausen and Hinterbirkenhof. The eastern boundary of the village is formed by the Eichbach, which disappears halfway through in a sinkhole. The Sulzbach flows through a wide valley southeast of the village. After being straightened during the land consolidation in the 1970s, it was renaturalised at the end of the 1980s. This measure was awarded the cultural landscape prize of the Swabian Heritage Society in 1991.
Siegelhausen, a small hamlet with about 30 inhabitants, is located about five kilometres southeast of the core town off the road between Affalterbach and Hochdorf in the valley of the Strombach, which is also called the Apfelbach.
History
Marbach am Neckar was founded by the
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
in the
8th century AD between the Duchies of
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
and
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper ...
and the Prince-Bishoprics of
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer lie ...
and
Constance. Marbach received its
town rights
Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...
in 1009 from Walter Marktrecht, Bishop of Speyer. Around the mid-13th century, those rights were reaffirmed by the
Dukes of Teck. In 1302, the Dukes of Teck sold Marbach to the
County of Württemberg, who made the city the seat of its own administrative district later in the 14th century and then an
Oberamt, , in 1758. That Oberamt was dramatically enlarged on 18 March 1806, but then dissolved entirely in 1938. Marbach was subsequently assigned to a new district,
Landkreis Ludwigsburg. On 1 July 1972, Marbach incorporated the town of Rielingshausen.
Geography
The city (''
Stadt'') of Marbach am Neckar covers of
the district
''The District'' is an American crime drama and police procedural television series which aired on CBS from October 7, 2000, to May 1, 2004. The show followed the work and personal life of the chief of Washington, D.C.'s police department.
Pr ...
of
Ludwigsburg in a total of four separate exclaves. Marbach is, according to government urban planning, part of the
Stuttgart Metropolitan Region. Marbach's municipal areas are physically located in the
Neckar
The Neckar () is a river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwen ...
, with the exception of its easternmost exclave, which lies in the
Swabian-Franconian Forest. The lowest elevation above sea level in the municipal area,
Normalnull
("standard zero") or (short N. N. or NN ) is an outdated official vertical datum used in Germany. Elevations using this reference system were to be marked (“meters above standard zero”). has been replaced by (NHN).
History
In 18 ...
(NN), is found where the Neckar flows out of Marbach and into
Benningen am Neckar. The highest elevation, , is found in the east, at the top of the Bülzberg.
[
]
Politics
Marbach has two boroughs (''Ortsteile'') – Marbach am Neckar and Rielingshausen – and three villages: Hinterbirkenhof, Hörnle, Siegelhausen. Also in Marbach's municipal area are the minor administrative units of Dampfkraftwerk, Eichgraben, and Häldenmühle, and the abandoned villages
An abandoned village is a village that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, f ...
of Hegnachsiedel, Kaisersberg, and Sigebotesbuch.[
]
Sister cities
Marbach am Neckar is twinned with:
* L'Isle-Adam, Val-d'Oise
L'Isle-Adam () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. The small town beside the river Oise has a long sandy beach and attracts visitors from Paris.
Geography
L'Isle-Adam is a commune and town in north ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, since 1987
* Washington, Missouri, United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, since 1990
* Tongling, Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze Riv ...
, People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, since 2005
Coat of arms
Marbach am Neckar's coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...
displays its field, gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
in color, as divided ''party per pale'' into halves. The left half has three black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...
, taken from the arms of Württemberg. The right half has a crenelated, white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...
tower wrapped with green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...
vines growing two clusters of blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
grapes. The placement of Württemberg's arms is derived from town seals in since Württemberg's purchase of the city in 1302, when their arms replaced those of the Dukes of Teck. The tower first appeared around 1547 as a reference to local viticulture. The current coat of arms was devised in 1938 from a 1593 town seal. Marbach has had a municipal flag since 1871.[
]
See also
* Museum of Modern Literature
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marbach Am Neckar
Towns in Baden-Württemberg
Ludwigsburg (district)
Populated places on the Neckar basin
Populated riverside places in Germany
Württemberg