Nördlingen

Nördlingen (ˈnœʁt.lɪŋ.ən; Swabian: Nearle or Nearleng) is a town in the Donau-Ries district, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, with a population of approximately 20,674. It is located approximately east of Stuttgart, and northwest of Munich. It was built in an impact crater 15 million years old and 25 km in diameter—the Nördlinger Ries—of a meteorite which hit with an estimated speed of 70,000 km/h, and left the area riddled with an estimated 72,000 tons of micro-diamonds. Nördlingen was first mentioned in recorded history in 898. The town was the location of two battles during the Thirty Years' War, which took place between 1618 and 1648. Today it is one of only three towns in Germany that still have completely intact city walls, the other two being Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl. Another attraction in the town is Saint George's Church's steeple, called "Daniel", which is made of a suevite impact breccia that contains shocked quartz. Other notable buildings are the town hall (which dates to the 13th century), St. Salvator church and the Spital, a former medieval hospital. The Ries crater museum is located in the well-preserved medieval tanners' quarter. The city is home to several other museums, such as the Bavarian Railway Museum, the Nördlingen city museum (Stadtmuseum), the city wall museum (Stadtmauermuseum) and Augenblick museum. The latter has panoramas, magic lanterns, silent films, barrel organs, pianolas, music boxes and gramophones. Nördlingen is also known for the Scharlachrennen (Scarlet Race), a horse race tournament that was first mentioned in 1463. Since World War II, it has expanded to include eventing, jumping and dressage. Finds in the Ofnet Caves near the city show that the site of present-day Nördlingen was already inhabited in the late Palaeolithic. In the Large Ofnet, in 1908 archaeologist R. R. Schmidt found two dish-shaped pits in which human skulls were lying "like eggs in flat baskets". In the larger pit were 27 skulls and in the other there were 6 skulls.