Altenburg

Altenburg is a city in the east of Thuringia, Germany, on the Pleisse river in the flat and fertile landscape of Osterland, next to the border with Saxony. It lies about 40 kilometres south of Leipzig, 90 kilometres west of Dresden and 100 kilometres east of Erfurt, and it is the capital of the Altenburger Land district. The town is first mentioned in a deed of 976, grew under the Hohenstaufen emperors, and was granted its charter around 1200. From the 17th century it was the residence of Ernestine ducal lines, and it was the capital of Saxe-Altenburg until the monarchy ended in 1918. It was the first city in Thuringia to be connected to the railway, in 1842. Its main sights are the castle, the Lindenau-Museum and the historic centre, and the card game Skat was developed here in the 1810s. The population peaked at about 56,000 around 1980 and had fallen to about 33,000 by 2012, one of the steepest declines of any German city.