Historic Cities · Germany

Freiburg through the ages

Freiburg im Breisgau, or simply Freiburg, is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of about 355,000 (2021), while the greater Freiburg metropolitan area has about 660,000 (2018).

1530 · minster of red sandstone

Freiburg in 1530

Minster and Market

Freiburg stands as a bustling Breisgau market town at the edge of the Black Forest, its lace-like Minster tower long finished and its new choir recently consecrated. Visitors will find water running through every street in the narrow Bächle, market stalls crowded beneath the spire, the new Kaufhaus with its arcades and oriels, and workshops and tanneries working along the town's channels.

The city is a compact knot of red-tiled roofs and timber‑framed houses punctured by the fretted stone of the Freiburger Münster's filigree west tower. Streets are narrow and paved, their edges lined with Bächle runnels; arcaded civic buildings and the new painted Kaufhaus stand by open market squares. Colourful market canopies and drying hides in the Gerberau give spots of hue against warm sandstone; carts and laden packhorses arrive from the forest roads.

The route: 14 streets, squares and views

Schlossberg Vineyards → Dreisam River Approach → Martinstor Gate → Gerberau Tanners' Quarter → Gewerbebach Channel → Augustinerstraße → Kaufhaus Arcades → Münsterplatz Market → Freiburger Münster → Market Bächle Runnel → …

Step inside, 8 interiors

Gatehouse Wine Tavern · Tanners' Over-Channel Workshop · Augustinian Refectory · Upper Merchants' Hall · Goldsmith's Shop and Forge · Choir of the New High Altar · Tower Star Gallery · Town Hall Council Chamber

Explore Freiburg in 1530 →22 scenes · 330 Clan Coins

Planned from the Wikipedia record: Freiburg Minster.

From the archive

Freiburg on paper: the old town as it was mapped.

A period plan or bird's-eye view of the old town, drawn between 1500 and 1850 — the streets this page's reconstructions walk. Public domain, with its source named.