Regensburg

Sister cities

• Tempe
• Plzeň
• Clermont-Ferrand
• Aberdeen
• Odesa
• Budapest District I
• Brixen
• Qingdao

History

The first settlements in the Regensburg area date from the Stone Age. The oldest Celtic name given to a settlement near Regensburg was Radasbona, a site where a Roman fort was built around AD 90. In 179, a major new Roman fort, called Castra Regina ("fortress by the river Regen"), was built for Legio III Italica during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It was an essential camp at the most northerly point of the Danube; it corresponds to what is today the core of Regensburg's Old City or Altstadt east of the Obere and Untere Bachgasse and west of the Schwanenplatz. It is believed that as early as the late Roman period, the city was the seat of a bishop. From the early 6th century, Regensburg was the seat of the ruling family, the Agilolfings. From about 530 to the first half of the 13th century, it was the capital of Bavaria. The bishopric established by the Romans was re-established by St Boniface as the Bishopric of Regensburg in 739. In the late 8th century, Regensburg remained an important city during the reign of Charlemagne. In 792, Regensburg hosted the ecclesiastical section of Charlemagne's General Assembly, the bishops in council who condemned the heresy of the nontrinitarian adoptionism doctrine taught by their Spanish counterparts, Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgell. After the partition of the Carolingian Empire in 843, the city became the seat of the Eastern Frankish ruler, Louis the German. Two years later, 14 Bohemian princes came to Regensburg to receive baptism there. This was the starting point of the Christianization of the Czechs, and the diocese of Regensburg became the mother diocese of that of Prague. These events had a wide impact on the cultural history of the Czech lands, as they were consequently part of the Roman Catholic and not…

Geography

Regensburg is situated on the northernmost part of the river Danube at the geological crossroads of four distinct landscapes: *to the north and northeast lies the Bavarian Forest with granite and gneiss mountains, wide forests and its national park *to the east and southeast is the fertile Danube plain (Gäuboden), which is a highly cultivated loess plain *the south is dominated by the Tertiary Hill Country, a continuation of Alpine Foreland *to the West is Franconian Jura Regensburg straddles the humid continental (Dfb) and oceanic (Cfb) climate zones under the Köppen climate classification. While the average temperature of during the period from 1971 to 2000 is slightly above the German average (), only 5 of the 80 cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants are colder. The average precipitation of per year ranges slightly below the German average (approximately ). For the more recent period from 1981 to 2010, the average temperature and precipitation rose to and , respectively. Although this increase in average temperature is evident in other cities as well, Regensburg still ranks fifth (shared with Ingolstadt and Kiel) in the ranking above. With a total of 1670 sunshine hours per year, Regensburg is roughly 120 hours above German average. The warmest month of the year, on average, is July. On average, the coolest month of the year is January.

Most-observed species

• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,187
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  1,107
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  913
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  899
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  898
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  807
• Great Spotted Woodpecker

  Dendrocopos major (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  756
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  688

Most recent

• M 3.2 — 2005-03-23
  2 km SW of Bärnau, Germany
• M 2.6 — 2002-09-28
  5 km SSW of Schwarzenbach, Germany
• M 2.5 — 2002-08-22
  5 km SSE of Rain, Germany
• M 2.5 — 2002-03-10
  2 km NNE of Waldmünchen, Germany
• M 2.5 — 2001-08-30
  2 km SW of Breitenbrunn, Germany