Bad Bergzabern

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Bad Bergzabern (German: [baːt ˈbɛʁktsaːbɐn] ) is a municipality in the Südliche Weinstraße district, on the German Wine Route in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated near the border with France, on the south-eastern edge of the Palatinate forest, approximately 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southwest of Landau.

Bad Bergzabern
Coat of arms of Bad Bergzabern
Location of Bad Bergzabern within Südliche Weinstraße district
Bad Bergzabern is located in Germany
Bad Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern is located in Rhineland-Palatinate
Bad Bergzabern
Bad Bergzabern
Coordinates: 49°06′10″N 7°59′57″E / 49.10280°N 7.99913°E / 49.10280; 7.99913
CountryGermany
StateRhineland-Palatinate
DistrictSüdliche Weinstraße
Municipal assoc.Bad Bergzabern
Government
 • Mayor (2019–24) Hermann Augspurger[1]
Area
 • Total10.71 km2 (4.14 sq mi)
Elevation
170 m (560 ft)
Population
 (2022-12-31)[2]
 • Total8,732
 • Density820/km2 (2,100/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes
76887
Dialling codes06343
Vehicle registrationSÜW
Websitewww.bad-bergzabern.de

Bad Bergzabern is the seat of the Verbandsgemeinde ("collective municipality") Bad Bergzabern.

Bad Bergzabern has a tradition as a holiday destination and contains various half-timbered houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Of particular note from an earlier century is the Gasthaus Zum Engel (1579), which has been described as the most beautiful renaissance building in the entire region.

Bad Bergzabern: Gasthaus Zum Engel (1579) )
Bad Bergzabern on a wintry morning, seen from the Zeppelinstraße

History

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In the sixteenth century local scholars were keen to assert that the town had been founded under the Romans, and sources from this period refer to the medieval Latin name as Tabernae Montanae (trans. "taverns of the mountains"). Although the area was indeed under the control of the Roman empire around the beginning of our era, evidence does not support the notion that Bad Bergzabern had its own origins so far back.

In 1525 the famous botanist Jacobus Theodorus Tabernaemontanus was born here.

In 1676, during the Franco-Dutch War, the French under Louis XIV infamously laid waste the Palatinate region as part of a scheme to enlarge France. Much of Bad Bergzabern was destroyed in the process. One of the few buildings that did survive the French king's torching of the town was the local duke's administrative office, which later became the Gasthaus zum Engel.

Reconstruction began in the eighteenth century under Gustav, Duke of Zweibrücken. The work involved stone buildings in the newly fashionable baroque style and included a residential Schloss for the duke. The project was directed by the architect Jonas Erikson Sundahl (1678-1762) who shared the duke's own Swedish provenance.

Friedrich Julius Marx, wrote a short history of Bergzabern „Oratio de Tabernis Montanis“ (Zweibrücken 1730).

The overlordship of the dukes of Zweibrücken ended with the French Revolution. On 10 November 1792 the townsfolk applied for incorporation within the new French Republic. A generation later former French frontiers were restored after the fall of Napoleon, however, and under the terms of the Second Peace of Paris (10 November 1815) the whole region came under the control of the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria.

Population development

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1871-1987: Census results:

Year Inhabitants
1815 2.745
1835 2.716
1871 2.419
1905 2.837
1939 5.018
1950 4.059
Year Inhabitants
1961 5.446
1970 5.392
1987 6.405
1997 8.139
2005 7.936
2016 8,164

Sons and daughters of the town

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Konrad Knoll appr. 1860

References

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  1. ^ Direktwahlen 2019, Landkreis Südliche Weinstraße, Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz, accessed 10 August 2021.
  2. ^ "Bevölkerungsstand 2022, Kreise, Gemeinden, Verbandsgemeinden" (PDF) (in German). Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz. 2023.
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  Media related to Bad Bergzabern at Wikimedia Commons