Kitzbühel

Kitzbühel lies in the Leukental amid the mountains of northeastern Tyrol. Its name appears in a twelfth-century document, and Duke Louis II of Bavaria granted it town rights in 1271. A defensive wall enclosed the settlement, which grew as a market between the Thurn Pass and the Chiemgau. In the fifteenth century its Bavarian rulers encouraged mining and issued mining regulations that gained importance throughout the duchy.

In 1504 King Maximilian acquired Kitzbühel, Kufstein and Rattenberg after settling the Landshut War of Succession. The districts joined Tyrol but retained Bavarian law into the nineteenth century. Maximilian pledged the Kitzbühel jurisdiction, which later came under the counts of Lamberg. The town briefly returned to Bavaria during the Napoleonic wars; some of its inhabitants joined the Tyrolean uprising before the Congress of Vienna restored Austrian rule.