Wittenberg

Wittenberg Lutherstadt Wittenberg
Town
From top: View over Wittenberg old town, Inside the old town with aerial view to the historic All Saints' / Castle Church, (where Protestant / Evangelical Lutheranism Reformer, Dr. Martin Luther (1483-1546), attended, held Mass and nailed his proclamation notice of "95 Theses" to the huge wooden front doors in October 1517, beginning the important Reformation movement); also Market Square with the town hall and Stadtkirche Wittenberg, inside Wittenberg castle church and Lutherhaus, The former University of Wittenberg, now renamed Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg / Leucorea university, campus with the Melanchthonhaus and the Stadthaus
Coat of arms
Location of Wittenberg within Wittenberg district
Wittenberg Show map of Germany Wittenberg Show map of Saxony-Anhalt
Coordinates: 51°52′02″N 12°38′54″E / 51.8671°N 12.6484°E / 51.8671; 12.6484
Country	Germany
State	Saxony-Anhalt
District	Wittenberg
Government
• Mayor (2022–29)	Torsten Zugehör[1] (Ind.)
Area
• Total	240.32 km2 (92.79 sq mi)
Elevation	67 m (220 ft)
Population  (2022-12-31)[2]
• Total	45,535
• Density	190/km2 (490/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	06886
Dialling codes	03491
Vehicle registration	WB
Website	wittenberg.de

Wittenberg,^[a] officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is the fourth-largest town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is situated on the River Elbe, 60 kilometers (37 mi) north of Leipzig and 90 kilometers (56 mi) south-west of the reunified German federal capital city of Berlin, and has a population of 46,008 (2018).

Wittenberg is famous for its close connection with Dr. Martin Luther (1483-1546) and the 16th century religious / theological movement of Protestantism begun here in the Reformation and the large branch of Western Christianity started here of Evangelical Lutheranism, for which it received the honorific title Lutherstadt and has been called the "cradle of the Reformation"^[3] and "cradle of Protestantism".^[4] Several of Wittenberg's buildings are associated with the historical / religious events, including a preserved part of the Augustinian monastery of the local community of the world-wide Roman Catholic Order of St. Augustine in which Luther lived, first as a celibate monk and later as property owner with his later wife Katharina von Bora (c. 1499-1552), and family, considered to be the world's premier museum dedicated to Luther and the Reformation era. Wittenberg was also the seat of the prince Elector of Saxony, a dignity held by the dukes of the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, making it one of the most powerful cities in the thousand years old of the Holy Roman Empire (A.D. c.800 / 962-1806) in Central Europe.

Today Wittenberg is an industrial centre and popular tourist destination, best known for its intact historic centre and various additional memorial sites dedicated to Martin Luther and his friend and fellow theologian / reformer Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), major author of the Evangelical Lutheran seminal theological document of the Augsburg Confession of 1530. The buildings associated with those two figures were added to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) designated World Heritage list in 1996, along with other sites in nearby Eisleben, because of their religious significance and testimony to one of the most influential religious, political and social movements of world history from the Medieval / Middle Ages era in the History of Europe.^[5]

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