Steinfurt

Steinfurt is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, north-west of Munster, and the capital of the district of Steinfurt. From about 1100 to 1806 it was the capital of the County of Steinfurt. The present city was formed in 1975 when the two formerly independent towns of Borghorst, once a prosperous textile centre, and Burgsteinfurt, a place of culture and administration, amalgamated; the name means roughly stony ford, after a crossing of the river Aa. Burgsteinfurt grew around a moated castle first linked to noblemen who appear in a document of 1129, and the Knights of St. John settled there in the 13th century. Its Hohe Schule became one of the oldest universities in Westphalia, and the Bagno park holds one of the oldest free-standing concert halls in Europe.