AUGSBURG  , a

city and episcopal see of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, chief town of the district of Swabia . Pop . (1885) 65,905; (1900) 89,109; (1905) 93,882 . It lies on a high plateau, 1500 ft. above the sea, between the rivers Wertach and Lech, which unite below the city, 39 M . W.N.W. from Munich, with which, as with Regensburg, Ingolstadt and Ulm, it is connected by main lines of railway . It consists of an upper and a lower town, the old Jakob suburb and various modern suburbs . Its fortifications were dismantled in 1703 and have since been converted into public promenades . Maximilian Street is remarkable for its breadth and architectural beauty . One of its most interesting edifices is the Fugger Hans, of which the entire front is painted in fresco . Among the public buildings of Augsburg most worthy of notice is the town-hall in Renaissance style, one of the finest in Germany, built by Elias Holl in 1616-1620 . One of its rooms, called the " Golden Hall," from the profusion of its gilding, is 113 ft. long, 59 broad and 53 high . The palace of the bishops, where the memorable Confession of Faith was presented to Charles V., is now used for government offices .

Among the seventeen

Roman Catholic churches and chapels, the cathedral, a basilica with two Romanesque towers, dates in its oldest portions from the loth century . The church of St Ulrich and St Afra, built 1474-1500, is a Late Gothic edifice, with a nave of magnificent proportions and a tower 300 ft. high . The church stands on the spot where the first Christians of the district suffered martyrdom, and where a chapel was erected in the 6th century over the grave of St Afra . There are also a Protestant church, St Anne's, a school of arts, a polytechnic institution, a picture gallery in the former monastery of St Catherine, a museum, observatory, botanical gardens, an exchange, gymnasium, deaf-mute institution, orphan asylum, several remarkable fountains dating from the 16th century, &c . Augsburg is particularly well provided with special and technical schools . The newer buildings, all in the modern west quarter of the city, include law courts, a theatre, and a municipal library with 200,000 volumes . The " Fuggerei," built in 1519 by the brothers Fugger, is a miniature town, with six streets or alleys, three gates and a church, and consists of a hundred and six small houses let to indigent Roman Catholic citizens at a nominal rent . The manufactures of Augsburg are of great importance . It is the chief seat of the textile industry in south Germany, and its cloth, cotton goods and linen manufactories employ about 10,000 hands . It is also noted for its bleach and dye works, its engine works, foundries, paper factories, and production of silk goods, watches, jewelry, mathematical instruments, leather, chemicals, &c . Augsburg is also the centre of the acetylene gas industry of Germany . Copper-engraving, for which it was formerly noted, is no longer carried on; but printing, lithography and publishing have acquired a considerable development, one of the best-known Continental newspapers being the Allgemeine Zeitung or Augsburg Gazette .

On the opposite

side of the river, which is here crossed by a bridge, lies the township of Lechhausen . Augsburg (the Augusta Vindelicorum of the Romans) derives its name from the Roman emperor Augustus, who, on the conquest of Rhaetia by Drusus, established here a Roman colony-AUGSBURG about 14 B.C . In the 5th century it was sacked by the Huns, and afterwards came under the power of the Frankish kings . It was almost entirely destroyed in the war of Charlemagne against Tassilo III., duke of Bavaria; and after the dissolution and division of that empire, it fell into the hands of the dukes of Swabia . After this it rose rapidly into importance as a manufacturing and commercial town, becoming, after Nuremberg, the centre of the trade between Italy and the north of Europe; its merchant princes, the Fuggers and Welsers, rivalled the Medici of Florence; but the alterations produced in the currents of trade by the discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries occasioned a great decline . In 1276 it was raised to the rank of a free imperial city, which it retained, with many changes in its internal constitution, till 18o6, when it was annexed to the kingdom of Bavaria . Meanwhile, it was the scene of numerous events of historical importance . It was besieged and taken by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, and in 1635 it surrendered to the imperial forces; in 1703 it was bombarded by the electoral prince of Bavaria, and forced to pay a contribution of 400,000 dollars; and in the war of 1803 it suffered severely . Of its conventions the most memorable are those which gave birth to the Augsburg confession (1530) and to the Augsburg alliance (1686) . See Wagenseil, Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg (Augs., 182o-1822) ; Werner, Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg (1899); Roth, Augsburg's Ref ormationsgeschichte (1902) .