Calw

Calw is a town in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, and the capital and largest town of the district of Calw. It lies in the valley of the river Nagold in the Northern Black Forest, about eighteen kilometres south of Pforzheim and thirty-three kilometres west of Stuttgart, at an altitude between 330 and 630 metres above sea level. It has the status of a große Kreisstadt, a large district town with extended municipal powers. The town was first mentioned in records in 1037 and grew around the castle of the Counts of Calw; in the Middle Ages it was an important centre of the cloth and leather trades and in 1345 it became part of Württemberg. In the eighteenth century it prospered from timber rafting on the Nagold. The town has thirteen quarters, including the former village of Hirsau.