Villingen

Villingen lies on the Brigach at the edge of the Black Forest and the Baar plateau. The dukes of Zähringen laid out the town on the river's right bank in 1119, with the crossing streets characteristic of their foundations. Villingen later became an imperial city, but lost that status when the counts of Fürstenberg received it as a fief in 1283. Wool weaving was an important occupation, and a guild charter regulated its civic government in 1324.

The town was sold to Austria in 1326 and remained part of the Habsburg lands for nearly five centuries. Plague struck severely in 1349, and the University of Freiburg later took refuge here during several epidemics. Villingen resisted repeated sieges during the Thirty Years' War, including a Swedish attempt to flood the town in 1634. In 1806 it passed to Baden, ending its long association with Further Austria.