Heidelberg is a city in Baden-Württemberg Land, which is in the southwestern part of Germany. This city is on the Neckar River, which has been channelized. The river comes out of the wooded hills of Odenwald and flows into the Rhine plain. In 1196, it was first named.
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From 1196 to 1720, it was the capital of the Rhenish Palatinate (Pfalz) and the home of the electoral count palatine. It was destroyed by fire in 1622 during the Thirty Years’ War and by the French in 1689 and 1693, so most of its important buildings are in the Baroque style, which was popular until the late 18th century, instead of the Gothic mediaeval style. The land was given to Baden in 1802 and grew a lot in the 20th century.
The University of Heidelberg, also known as the Ruprecht-Karl-Universitat, is Germany’s oldest college or university. It was started by Rupert I and officially recognised by Pope Urban VI in 1386. Its Geological-Paleontological Institute is home to the Heidelberg jaw, a fossilised jawbone that was found nearby in 1907. It is thought to be about 500,000 years old.
Heidelberg is still mostly a university town and a place to live, but it has also grown a lot of businesses. Machinery, precise tools, and goods made from leather, tobacco, and wood are all examples of things that are made. Even though the castle is beautiful, the main source of income is tourism; each year, several million people visit. French troops destroyed this lovely red limestone building in 1689 and 1693. It sits 330 feet (100 meters) above the river and has a view of the city. In 1764, lightning struck it and destroyed it again. While work on the building began in the 1300s, the most important parts, such as the Otto-Heinrichsbau and Friedrichsbau, were not finished until the Renaissance. The Heidelberg Tun (1751), a huge wine barrel that can hold 185,500 liters of wine, is at the base of the Friedrichsbau. From the lower city to the castle and up to the top of the Konigsstuhl mountain range, you can take a cable train. Between 1400 and 1336, only the Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church), the Marstall (1590; once the Royal Mews), and the Knight’s House (1592) were left standing. There are also the town hall (1701–03), the Jesuitenkirche (1712), and the Old (or Karl-Theodor) Bridge (1786–88, rebuilt after 1945).
There is a path on the north side of the Neckar that looks out over Heidelberg’s old town. It was named after the university teachers who liked the view and used it for study. The road has been made better and longer since then. You can walk all the way to the end and see a park dedicated to the author Friedrich Holderlin, the Thingstatte, the ruins of St. Michael’s Monastery, and an amphitheater built by the Nazi Party in the 1930s that is now overgrown. In 2010, there were about 147,312 people living there.