Dillingen an der Donau
town in Bavaria, Germany
Dillingen an der Donau (German pronunciation: [ˈdɪlɪŋən ʔan deːɐ̯ ˈdoːnaʊ] ; officially Dillingen a.d.Donau; lit. 'Dillingen on the Danube') is a town in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative center of the district of Dillingen.
Besides the town of Dillingen proper, the municipality encompasses the villages of Donaualtheim, Fristingen, Hausen, Kicklingen, Schretzheim and Steinheim.
Schretzheim is notable for its 6th to 7th century Alemannic cemetery, 630 row graves in an area of 100 by 140 metres.
History
The counts of Dillingen ruled from the 10th to the 13th century; in 1258 the territory was turned over to the Prince Bishops of Augsburg. After the Reformation, the prince-bishops of Augsburg moved to the Catholic city of Dillingen and made it one of the centers of the Counter-Reformation.
In 1800, during the War of the Second Coalition, the armies of the French First Republic, under command of Jean Victor Moreau, fought Habsburg regulars and Württemberg contingents, under the general command of Pál Kray. Kray had taken refuge in the fortress at Ulm; Moreau diverted his army to approach Ulm from the east and, after a small group of men captured a foothold on the northern bank of the Danube, his forces were able to move against the fortress on both sides of the river. At this battle, the culmination of the Danube Campaign of 1800, Moreau forced Kray to abandon Ulm and withdraw into eastern Bavaria.
A university was established in 1549, but was closed by Napoleon in 1804.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dillingen an der Donau” as town in Bavaria, Germany. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as town in Bavaria, Germany. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q494702. VIAF identifies the subject as 123164092. The Library of Congress control number is n81054177. Authority coordinates are 48.577, 10.494. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1258, 1800, 1549 and 1804.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dillingen an der Donau”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dillingen an der Donau primary sources, Dillingen an der Donau archive and Dillingen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dillingen an der Donau”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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This entry incorporates text from “Dillingen an der Donau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.