Margraviate of Baden-Baden

This article is about the early modern state. For the city, see Baden-Baden.
Map of the Margraviate of Baden-Baden
Schloss Rastatt, the palace of the margraves in the 18th century

The Margraviate of Baden-Baden was an early modern southwest German territory within the Holy Roman Empire. It was created in 1535 along with the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach as a result of the division of the Margraviate of Baden. Its territory consisted of a core area on the middle stretch of the Upper Rhine around the capital city of Baden, as well as lordships on the Moselle and Nahe.

While Protestantism took hold in Baden-Durlach, Baden-Baden was Catholic from the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) onwards. After the complete destruction of the territory in the Nine Years' War (1688-1697), Margrave Louis William, the "Turkishlouis", moved the capital to Rastatt and built Schloss Rastatt there, the first baroque palace on the Upper Rhine. Under the regency of his widow, Sibylle of Saxe-Lauenburg, further baroque structures were built. When her second son Augustus George died without heirs in 1771, Baden-Baden was inherited by the rulers of Baden-Durlach, reuniting the two margraviates.