Tübingen

Tübingen (/ˈtubɪŋən/ ^ⓘ; German: [ˈtyːbɪŋən]; Swabian: Dibenga) is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany, 30 km (19 mi) south of the state capital, Stuttgart. With students accounting for almost one in three of Tübingen's 90,000 residents, the city has one of the youngest profiles in Germany, with an average age of just under 40.

Founded in 1477, Eberhard Karls University is one of the oldest universities north of the Alps. It associated Tübingen, in the 19th century with the German-patriotic student Burschenschaften, whose large fraternity houses are still a notable feature; in the years between the World Wars, with the rise of National Socialism; and in the German Federal Republic with the emergence of the liberal-left Greens, currently the largest tendency in local government.

Following the end of the Cold War, and the evacuation of extensive military bases by French NATO troops, a new mixed-use district, the French Quarter, was added to a town that, exceptionally, survived the Second World War and post-war urban planning with its medieval fabric almost wholly intact.

Tübingen developed around the base of the fortress Schloss Hohentübingen and of the Stiftskirche zu St. Georg, the collegiate church, and on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers.

Immediately north of the city lies the Schönbuch, a densely wooded nature park. The Swabian Alb mountains rise about 13 km (8 mi) (beeline Tübingen City to Roßberg - 869 m) to the southeast of Tübingen. The Ammer and Steinlach rivers are tributaries of the Neckar river, which flows in an easterly direction through the city, just south of the medieval old town. Large parts of the city are hilly, with the Schlossberg and the Österberg in the city centre and the Schnarrenberg and Herrlesberg, among others, rising immediately adjacent to the inner city.

The highest point is at about 500 m (1,640.42 ft) above sea level near Bebenhausen in the Schönbuch forest, while the lowest point is 305 m (1,000.66 ft) in the city's eastern Neckar valley. The geographical centre of the state of Baden-Württemberg is in a small forest called Elysium, near the Botanical Gardens of the city's university.

The area was probably first settled in the 12th millennium BC. The Romans left some traces here in AD 85, when, in confrontation with the local Alamanni, they built a limes frontier wall at the Neckar River. The local castle, Hohentübingen, has records going back to 1078, when it was besieged by Henry IV, King of Germany.

In the middle of the 12th century, the local the Counts of Zollern were raised to Imperial Counts Palatine, with their seat in Tübingen. By 1231, Tübingen was a civitas, indicating recognition by the Crown of civil liberties, a market and a court system. In the later decades of the 13th century, the town saw the establishment an Augustinian, and a Franciscan, monastery, and a Latin school (today's Uhland-Gymnasium). In 1342, the town and castle passed to the Counts of Württemberg.