Trier ( ,"Trier" (US) and ; ), formerly and traditionally known in English as Trèves ( , "Trèves" (US) and ) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the west of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, near the border with Luxembourg and within the Moselle wine region.
Founded by the Romans in the late 1st century BC as Augusta Treverorum ("The City of Augustus among the Treveri"), Trier is considered Germany's oldest city. It is also the oldest seat of a bishop north of the Alps. Trier was one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. In the Middle Ages, the archbishop-elector of Trier was an important prince of the Church who controlled land from the French border to the Rhine. The archbishop-elector of Trier also had great significance as one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Because of its significance during the Roman and Holy Roman empires, several monuments and cathedrals within Trier are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
With an approximate population of 110,000, Trier is the fourth-largest city in its state, after Mainz, Ludwigshafen, and Koblenz. The nearest major cities are Luxembourg City ( to the southwest), Saarbrücken ( southeast), and Koblenz ( northeast).
The University of Trier, the administration of the Trier-Saarburg district and the seat of the ADD (Aufsichts- und Dienstleistungsdirektion), which until 1999 was the borough authority of Trier, and the Academy of European Law (ERA) are all based in Trier. It is one of the five "central places" of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Along with Luxembourg, Metz and Saarbrücken, fellow constituent members of the union of cities, it is central to the greater region encompassing Saar-Lor-Lux (Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg), Rhineland-Palatinate, and Wallonia.
History
The first traces of human settlement in the area of the city show evidence of linear pottery settlements dating from the early Neolithic period. Since the last pre-Christian centuries, members of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri settled in the area of today's Trier.Heinen, pp. 1–12. The city of Trier derives its name from the later Latin locative for earlier . According to the Archbishops of Trier, in the , the founder of the city of the Trevians is Trebeta. German historian Johannes Aventinus also credited Trebeta with building settlements at Metz, Mainz, Basel, Strasbourg, Speyer and Worms.
The historical record describes the Roman Empire subduing the Treveri in the and establishing about 16 BC. The name distinguished it from the empire's many other cities honoring the first Roman emperor, Augustus. The city later became the capital of the province of Belgic Gaul; after the Diocletian Reforms, it became the capital of the prefecture of the Gauls, overseeing much of the Western Roman Empire. From 293 to 395, Trier was one of the residences of the Western Roman Emperor. In the 4th century, Trier was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, with a population around 75,000 and perhaps as much as 100,000. The Porta Nigra ("Black Gate") dates from this era. A residence of the Western Roman emperor, Roman Trier was the birthplace of Saint Ambrose. Sometime between 395 and 418, probably in 407 the Roman administration moved the staff of the Praetorian Prefecture from Trier to Arles. The city continued to be inhabited but was not as prosperous as before. However, it remained the seat of a governor and had state factories for the production of ballistae and armor and woolen uniforms for the troops, clothing for the civil service, and high-quality garments for the Court. Northern Gaul was held by the Romans along a line () from north of Cologne to the coast at Boulogne through what is today southern Belgium until 460. South of this line, Roman control was firm, as evidenced by the continuing operation of the imperial arms factory at Amiens.
The history of the relationship between the Copts in Egypt and the city of Trier goes back to the second half of the fourth century AD, specifically the year 336 AD, when Pope Athanasius I, the 20th Patriarch (328–373 AD), was exiled to this city by order of Emperor Constantine the Great (25 July 306 – 22 May 337 AD).
Pope Athanasius the Apostolic – born around 296 AD – spent his youth in clerical circles, namely in the episcopal residence in the city of Alexandria. This upbringing made him well-versed in the affairs of church administration, immersed in an atmosphere rich with the purely pastoral and educational concerns of the popes.
The Franks seized Trier from Roman administration in 459. In 870, it became part of Eastern Francia, which developed into the Holy Roman Empire. Relics of Saint Matthias brought to the city initiated widespread pilgrimages. The bishops of the city grew increasingly powerful and the Archbishopric of Trier was recognised as an electorate of the empire, one of the most powerful states of Germany. The University of Trier was founded in the city in 1473. In the 17th century, the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier relocated their residence to Philippsburg Castle in Ehrenbreitstein, near Koblenz. A session of the Reichstag was held in Trier in 1512, during which the demarcation of the Imperial Circles was definitively established.
In the years from 1581 to 1593, the Trier witch trials were held. It was one of the four largest witch trials in Germany alongside the Fulda witch trials, the Würzburg witch trial, and the Bamberg witch trials, perhaps even the largest one in European history. The persecutions started in the diocese of Trier in 1581 and reached the city itself in 1587, where it was to lead to the death of about 368 people, and was as such perhaps the biggest mass execution in Europe in peacetime. This counts only those executed within the city itself. The exact number of people executed in all the witch hunts within the diocese has never been established; a total of 1,000 has been suggested but not confirmed.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the French–Habsburg rivalry brought war to Trier. Spain and France fought over the city during the Thirty Years' War. The bishop was imprisoned by Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor for his support for France between 1635 and 1645. In later wars between the Empire and France, French troops occupied the city during the Nine Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Polish Succession. After conquering Trier again in 1794 during the French Revolutionary Wars, France annexed the city and the electoral archbishopric was dissolved. After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, Trier passed to the Kingdom of Prussia. Karl Marx, the German philosopher and one of the founders of Marxism, was born in the city in 1818.
As part of the Prussian Rhineland, Trier developed economically during the 19th century. The city rose in revolt during the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, although the rebels were forced to concede. It became part of the German Empire in 1871.
The synagogue on was looted during the November 1938 and later completely destroyed in a bomb attack in 1944. Multiple have been installed in Trier to commemorate those murdered and exiled during the Shoah.List of Stolperstein in Trier (in German).
In June 1940, during World War II over 60,000 British prisoners of war, captured at Dunkirk and Northern France, were marched to Trier, which became a staging post for British soldiers headed for German prisoner-of-war camps. Trier was heavily bombed and bombarded in 1944. The city became part of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate after the war. The university, dissolved in 1797, was restarted in the 1970s, and Trier Cathedral was reopened in 1974 after undergoing substantial and long-lasting renovations. Trier officially celebrated its 2,000th anniversary in 1984. On 1 December 2020, 5 people were killed by an allegedly drunk driver during a vehicle-ramming attack.Trier: Five die as car ploughs through Germany pedestrian zone. BBC News. Retrieved 2021-01-04. The Ehrang/Quint district of Trier was heavily damaged and flooded during the 16 July 2021 floods of Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Geography Trier sits in a hollow midway along the Moselle valley, with the most significant portion of the city on the east bank of the river. Wooded and vineyard-covered slopes stretch up to the Hunsrück plateau in the south and the Eifel in the north. The border with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is some away.
Neighbouring municipalities Listed in clockwise order, beginning with the northernmost; all municipalities belong to the Trier-Saarburg district
Schweich, Kenn and Longuich (all part of the Verbandsgemeinde Schweich an der Römischen Weinstraße), Mertesdorf, Kasel, Waldrach, Morscheid, Korlingen and Gusterath (all in the Verbandsgemeinde Ruwer), Hockweiler, Franzenheim (both part of the Verbandsgemeinde Trier-Land), Konz and Wasserliesch (both part of the Verbandsgemeinde Konz), Igel, Trierweiler, Aach, Newel, Kordel, Zemmer (all in the Verbandsgemeinde Trier-Land).
Organisation of city districts
The Trier urban area is divided into 19 city districts. For each district, there is an Ortsbeirat (local council) of between 9 and 15 members, as well as an Ortsvorsteher (local representative). The local councils are charged with hearing the important issues that affect the district, although the final decision on any issue rests with the city council. The local councils nevertheless have the freedom to undertake limited measures within the bounds of their districts and their budgets.
The districts of Trier with area and inhabitants (31 December 2009):
Official district number District with associated sub-districts Areain km2 Inhabitants 11 Mitte/Gartenfeld 2.978 11,954 12 Nord (Nells Ländchen, Maximin) 3.769 13,405 13 Süd (St. Barbara, St. Matthias or St. Mattheis) 1.722 9,123 21 Ehrang/Quint 26.134 9,195 22 Pfalzel 2.350 3,514 23 Biewer 5.186 1,949 24 Ruwer/Eitelsbach 9.167 3,091 31 West/Pallien 8.488 7,005 32 Euren (Herresthal) 13.189 4,207 33 Zewen (Oberkirch) 7.496 3,634 41 Olewig 3.100 3,135 42 Kürenz (Alt-Kürenz, Neu-Kürenz) 5.825 8,708 43 Tarforst 4.184 6,605 44 Filsch 1.601 761 45 Irsch 4.082 2,351 46 Kernscheid 3.768 958 51 Feyen/Weismark 5.095 5,689 52 Heiligkreuz (Alt-Heiligkreuz, Neu-Heiligkreuz, St. Maternus) 2.036 6,672 53 Mariahof (St. Michael) 7.040 3,120 Totals 117.210 105,076
Climate Trier has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), but with greater extremes than the marine versions of northern Germany. Summers are warm except in unusual heat waves and winters are recurrently cold, but not harsh. Precipitation is high despite not being on the coast. As a result of the European heat wave in 2003, the highest temperature recorded was 39°C on 8 August of that year. On 25 July 2019, a record-breaking temperature of 40.6°C was recorded, a record which was again broken on 27 June 2026, as the result of the European heatwave in 2026. The lowest recorded temperature was −19.3°C on 2 February 1956.
Demography
+Largest groups of foreign residentsCountry of birth Population (2013) 688 675 573 476 444
Culture Trier has a municipal theatre, Theater Trier, for musical theatre, plays and dance.
Main sights
Trier is known for its well-preserved Roman and medieval buildings, which include: the Porta Nigra, the best-preserved Roman city gate north of the Alps; the huge Aula Palatina, a basilica in the original Roman sense, was the long throne hall of Roman emperor Constantine; it is today used as a Protestant church; adjacent is the Electoral Palace, Trier; the Roman Trier Amphitheater; the 2nd century AD Roman bridge (Römerbrücke) across the Moselle, the oldest bridge north of the Alps still crossed by traffic;