Koblenz
Details
- Names
Koblenz
Coblentz
Coblenza
Castrum ad Confluentes
Coblenz
Confluentes
- Place Type
- inhabited place
- Description
- The western German city of Koblenz is located in a wooded area at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle rivers some 50 miles south-southeast of Cologne. It began as a Roman settlement established in 9 BCE by the general Drusus. In the sixth century it became the seat of the Frankish kings. The archbishops of Trier ruled it from 1018. It received its town charter in 1214. It was occupied by the French in 1794 and settled by a major movement of emigrés. Prussia took it over in1815, and it became the capital of the Prussian Rhine province until 1945. It was occupied by the Americans from 1919 to 1923, and by the French from 1923 to 1929. It was badly damaged in World War II, but has retained much of its historic architecture, including a ninth-century church rebuilt around 1200, several 13th-century churches and fortifications, the Baldwin Bridge across the Moselle, built in 1343, and the house where the Austrian statesman Prince Metternich was born in 1773. Post-war planning and construction have made the modern city specious and attractive, and an important center for tourism and conferences. Its port is one of the major petroleum ports on the mid-Rhine. Manufacturing includes furniture, chemicals, and clothing. Its population for 2005 was calculated to be 108,146.
- Authority
- Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- Source
- Canby, Historic Places (1984); Columbia Encyclopedia (1975); Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer (1961); Encyclopaedia Britannica (1988); GRI Photo Archive, Authority File (1998); Müllers Deutsches Ortsbuch (1988); NGA/NIMA database (2003-); Times Atlas of the World (1994); USBGN: Foreign Gazetteers; Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1984); Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1988);
- Born
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