Riedlingen

Riedlingen stands on the upper Danube at the southern edge of the Swabian Jura. The older settlement was recorded in 835 as Hruodininga; between 1247 and 1255 the counts of Veringen laid out a new town beside it. Its rectangular plan had three parallel streets, with the central street widening towards the market. A road and ford across the Danube favoured the town's growth as a place of exchange.

The Habsburgs acquired Riedlingen in 1297, but repeatedly pledged it to other lords. In 1375 Duke Leopold granted the citizens the right to choose their own council, and a hospital was founded two years later. Reformation preachers found support in the town, but the Waldburg lords opposed them; Johannes Zwick was expelled in the 1520s. In 1680 Riedlingen and other Danube towns paid to redeem the Waldburg pledge and return to direct Austrian rule. The town passed to Württemberg in the Napoleonic reorganisation.