Atlas Trail
Ten Eastern German Towns from Anklam to Schwarzenberg
This path runs north to south through ten towns of eastern Germany, from the Peene river near the Baltic lagoon to the Ore Mountains on the Czech border. Each stop is a town the atlas records with a documented medieval or later past, so the trail reads as a walk from Hanseatic ports and Elbe crossings through the Ottonian Harz foothills and the Mulde valley to the mining and industrial uplands of Saxony.
Stop 1 of 10.
Cities
Anklam sits on the Peene river about 8 kilometers from its mouth on the Szczecin Lagoon. It was elevated to town status in 1244, joined the Hanseatic League around the same period, and was the capital of the Ostvorpommern district until that district was merged in 2011.
Stop 2 of 10.
Cities
Werben (Elbe) lies on the left bank of the Elbe in the Stendal district and carries the official designation of Hansestadt. It was first documented in 1005, joined the Hanseatic League in 1358, and with about 899 residents is the smallest town on this path.
Stop 3 of 10.
Cities
Gardelegen was founded in the tenth century and joined the Hanseatic League in 1358. After the expansions of 2009 to 2011 it became the third largest town by area in Germany, and on April 13, 1945 the Isenschnibbe Barn massacre took place here, now commemorated by a military cemetery.
Stop 4 of 10.
Cities
Brandenburg an der Havel was the capital of the Margraviate of Brandenburg until Berlin replaced it in 1417. It gave its name to the medieval bishopric, the margraviate and the present state, and had 73,945 residents in 2025, making it the largest town on this path.
Stop 5 of 10.
Cities
Quedlinburg lies just north of the Harz mountains and became a center of the Ottonian dynasty in the 10th and 11th centuries. Its castle, church and old town, with around 2,100 surviving timber houses, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994.
Stop 6 of 10.
Cities
Zwenkau, about 15 kilometres south of Leipzig, was first documented in 974 as a Slavic settlement and is one of Saxony's oldest recorded places. A former open-cast lignite mine near the town closed in 1999 and has since been flooded and turned into the recreational Lake Zwenkau.
Stop 7 of 10.
Cities
Grimma stands on the left bank of the Mulde about twenty five kilometers southeast of Leipzig. Of Sorbian origin and first documented in 1065, it has housed the Gymnasium St. Augustin, one of three elite Saxon boarding schools, since 1550, and it suffered severe Mulde floods in 2002 and 2013.
Stop 8 of 10.
Cities
Wurzen is also on the Mulde, first mentioned in a donation charter of Otto I in 961. It has a twelfth century cathedral, lies on the Via Regia pilgrimage route, and in 1839 gained the first German railway bridge, built across the Mulde for the Leipzig to Dresden line.
Stop 9 of 10.
Cities
Reichenbach im Vogtland is the second largest town in the Vogtlandkreis after Plauen. Its Goeltzsch Viaduct, built between 1846 and 1851, is described as the world's largest brick bridge, and the town's population fell from nearly 35,000 after reunification in 1991 as industrial employment declined.
Stop 10 of 10.
Cities
Schwarzenberg in the Ore Mountains was founded in the 12th century to protect a trade route and became the largest producer of washing machines in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Stefan Heym later used the phrase Free Republic of Schwarzenberg for the gap between occupation zones in 1945.
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