Lenzburg

Lenzburg is a town of about 11,000 inhabitants in the central region of the Swiss canton of Aargau and the capital of the Lenzburg District. Founded in the Middle Ages, it lies in the Seetal valley about 3 kilometres south of the Aare, and it has grown together with the neighbouring municipalities of Niederlenz and Staufen into an agglomeration. A Neolithic grave field of the Cortaillod culture dating from 4300 to 3500 BCE has been discovered on the Goffersberg near Lenzburg Castle. A Roman theatre uncovered when a motorway was built in 1964 belonged to a small settlement of 500 inhabitants that existed for about 200 years and was abandoned in the 3rd century, and an Alamanni settlement existed in the 5th and 6th centuries. Lenzburg is first mentioned in 924 as de Lencis. In 1036 the castle was first used as the seat of the Count of Lenzburg, whose house died out in 1173, and it then passed to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.