Aalen is situated on the upper reaches of the river Kocher, at the foot of the Swabian Jura which lies to the south and south-east, and close to the hilly landscapes of the Ellwangen Hills to the north and the Welland to the north-west.

The town centre itself and the merged former municipalities consist of numerous villages (Teilorte), mostly separated by open ground from each other and having their own independent and long-standing history.

Its designated catchment area includes the following municipalities of the central and eastern Ostalbkreis district: Abtsgmünd, Bopfingen, Essingen, Hüttlingen, Kirchheim am Ries, Lauchheim, Neresheim, Oberkochen, Riesbürg and Westhausen, and is interwoven with the catchment area of Nördlingen, situated in Bavaria, 30 km (19 mi) east of Aalen.

Tools made of flint and traces of Mesolithic human settlement dated between the 8th and 5th millennium BC were found on several sites on the margins of the Kocher and Jagst valleys.

Around 260 AD, the Romans gave up the fort as they withdrew their presence in unoccupied Germania back to the Rhine and Danube rivers, and the Alamanni took over the region.

The first mention of Aalen was in 839, when emperor Louis the Pious reportedly permitted the Fulda monastery to exchange land with the Hammerstadt village, then known as Hamarstat.

Documents, from the Middle Ages, indicate that the town of Aalen was founded by the Hohenstaufen some time between 1241 and 1246, but at a different location than the earlier village, which was supposedly destroyed in 1388 during the war between the Alliance of Swabian Cities and the Dukes of Bavaria.

Delegated by Württemberg's Duke Louis III, on 28 June 1575, nearly 30 years after Martin Luther's death, Jakob Andreae, professor and chancellor of the University of Tübingen, arrived in Aalen.

19th century research by Hermann Bauer, Lutheran pastor and local historian, discovered that the 17th-century account is exaggerated, but he does agree that the town church and buildings in a "rather large" semicircle around it were destroyed.

[23] The War of the Second Coalition concluded in 1801 with the signing of the Treaty of Lunéville, which led to the German Mediatisation of 1803 that assigned most Imperial Cities to the neighbouring principalities.

This event, along with Bavarian and Austrian troops moving in some days later, caused miseries that according to the town clerk "no feather could describe".

Other crafts that added to the economy were weaving mills, which produced linen and woolen goods, and baking of sweet pastry and gingerbread.

[29] To fight housing shortage during and immediately after World War I, the town set up barracks settlement areas at the Schlauch and Alter Turnplatz grounds.

The prisoners at these other camps had to work for the arms industry in major businesses like Schwäbische Hüttenwerke and the Alfing Keßler machine factory.

It was only during the last weeks of the war that Aalen became a target of air warfare, which led to the destruction and severe damage of parts of the town, the train station, and other railway installations.

The few Catholics of today's central district were covered by the parish of Unterkochen until the 19th century, a situation which continued for some years even after completion of St. Mary's Church in 1868, which was constructed by Georg Morlok.

The seats are distributed as follows on parties and groups (changes refer to the second last election of 2004): Since 1374, the mayor and the council maintain the government of the town.

In the Geological-Paleontological Museum located in the historic town hall, there are more than 1500 fossils from the Swabian Jura, including ammonites, ichthyosaurs and corals, displayed.

There is memorial stone at the Schillerlinde tree above Wasseralfingen's ore pit dedicated to four prisoners of the subcamp of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp killed there.

[35] In 1954, on the Schillerhöhe hill the town erected a bell tower as a memorial to Aalen's victims of both world wars and to the displacement of ethnic Germans.

When the emperor asked him what he had lost here, he answered in Swabian German: "Don't frighten, high lords, I just want to peek how many cannons and other war things you've got, since I am the spy of Aalen".

According to legend, he rammed his head so hard it bled on this window, when he was startled by the noise of his soldiers ridiculing the "Spy of Aalen".

About 10 metres (33 ft) in front of the Reichsstädter Brunnen fountain at the town hall, the coats of arms of Aalen, its twinned cities and of the Wischau linguistic enclave are paved into the street as mosaic.

In 1705, for the water supply of Aalen a well casing was erected at the northern point of the market square, in front of the Historic Town Hall.

[58] The former iron ore pit Wilhelm at Braunenberg hill was converted into the Tiefer Stollen tourist mine in order to remind of the old-day miners' efforts and to maintain it as a memorial of early industrialisation in the Aalen area.

The Town of Aalen, a sponsorship association, and many citizens volunteered several thousand hours of labour to put the mine into its current state.

[63] The 46.5 hectares (115 acres) large Goldshöfer Sande protected area was established in 2000 and is situated between Aalen's Hofen district and Hüttlingen.

The sands on the hill originated from the Early Pleistocene are of geological importance, and the various grove structures offer habitat to severely endangered bird species.

King, Ray Charles, David Murray, McCoy Tyner, Al Jarreau, Esbjörn Svensson and Albert Mangelsdorff.

[44] Notable enterprises include SHW Automotive (originating from the former Schwäbische Hüttenwerke steel mills and a mill of 1671 in Wasseralfingen), the Alfing Kessler engineering works, the precision tools manufacturer MAPAL Dr. Kress, the snow chain manufacturer RUD Ketten Rieger & Dietz and its subsidiary Erlau, the Gesenkschmiede Schneider forging die smithery, the SDZ Druck und Medien media company, the Papierfabrik Palm paper mill, the alarm system manufacturer Telenot, the laser show provider LOBO electronic and the textile finisher Lindenfarb, which all have their seat in Aalen.