The Aare, which flows through the centre of the old town, divides the municipality into two separate, distinct landscapes – the Swiss plateau on the southern bank and the beginnings of the Jura on the northern side.

On the eastern border of the municipality three of the most important Swiss rivers flow together, first the Reuss and the Aare, the combination of which is met approximately one and a half kilometers (0.93 miles) further downstream by the Limmat.

[5] Brugg is bordered by the municipalities of Rüfenach and Villigen to the north; Untersiggenthal and Gebenstorf to the northeast; Windisch and Lupfig to the east; Hausen, Habsburg, Holderbank, and Veltheim to the south; Villnachern and Schinznach to the west; and Riniken and Bözberg to the northwest.

In 58 BC, or shortly thereafter, the Helvetii, who had returned to the Swiss Plateau following the Battle of Bibracte, (re-)founded the settlement of Vindonissa on a hill between the Aare and Reuss on what is today territory of the neighboring community of Windisch.

At this time the first wooden bridge over the Aare was built as part of a Roman road across the Jura mountains to Augusta Raurica (known today as Augst).

The earliest documented use of the name Bruggo has been dated to the year 1064, when Count Werner I attested to the possession of goods on the part of Muri Abbey in the area.

In memory of this event his wife, Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, founded Königsfelden Abbey (Cloister of King's Field), a Franciscan monastery and Clarisse convent, in 1310–11 at the site – approximately 200 meters from Brugg.

[8][9] Albrecht's oldest daughter, Agnes of Hungary, the widow of the Hungarian King Andrew III, moved to Königsfelden in 1317 and led it to commercial success, but did not join a religious order.

At the same time, the Habsburgs relinquished control of Schenkenberg, originally in the district of Bözberg, to creditors they had pledged the territory to following their loss in the Battle of Sempach.

A small band led by Baron Thomas von Falkenstein sneaked down the Bruggerberg and forced its way through town, ransacking homes and setting a number of them ablaze.

Although the ordeal did not cause many deaths, it was nonetheless characterized as a downright massacre by Zürich's opponents and subsequently referred to as the "Brugg Night of Murder" (Brugger Mordnacht).

On 5 September 1445 troops from Zürich launched another assault on Brugg, but their raid was detected at an early stage and consequently repelled, whereupon they pillaged surrounding villages.

The Baldeggs, who had demonstratively aligned themselves with the Austrians, considered their territory on the northern bank of the Aare to be their personal property and took offense at the town's claims upon it.

In 1588 Johann Georg von Hallwyl, later Bishop of Basel, sold two-thirds of the parishes of Bözberg and Rein to the town, as well as one third of the lower jurisdiction (niedere Gerichtsbarkeit) in Villnachern.

Responsible for this sudden shift was the War of the Second Coalition, during which the battlefront ran directly through the Aare Valley and hundreds of French soldiers were quartered in houses in the town.

Following the Act of Mediation, signed by Napoléon Bonaparte on 19 March 1803, Brugg was definitively made a district capital in the newly arranged canton of Aargau.

The steep incline of the Hauptstrasse, the most important thoroughfare through the old town, hindered transportation and was therefore leveled in 1836 under the supervision of the later-renowned engineer Alois Negrelli.

Four years later, in 1827, the town purchased a tract of land near the Brunnenmühle from Umiken in the vicinity of the "Vorstadt" and, in return, agreed to abstain from its right to wood and fields in the "Umiker Schachen."

The expansion of the railroad initially hurt the town's economy, as the road over the Bözberg Pass was replaced by rail and the businesses serving these travelers lost their clientele.

Meanwhile, between 1898 and 1901, the canton of Aargau forcibly merged twelve smaller communities against their will, as they no longer appeared to be economically viable as independent entities and could therefore not meet their legally prescribed duties and responsibilities.

Although the final vote in the town meeting came down firmly against its cessation of independence (42 against versus 2 in favor), the Grand Council approved of its incorporation into Brugg on 1 January 1901.

Agriculture had never played a significant role in the town's economy, but various circumstances led to the rise of Brugg as the "Farmers Metropolis" ("Bauernmetropole") at the start of the 20th century.

Catholics, whose portion of the population rose greatly due to the arrival of factory workers, were allowed to build their own church in 1907, about 400 years after the Reformation and Brugg's subsequent conversion to Protestantism.

Under the influence of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933, there were multiple demonstrations and counterdemonstrations organized by the National Front and opposition groups in town, which drew up to 3,000 participants at their peak.

An inland water transport port with two basins in Aufeld was also envisioned as part of a plan to make the High Rhine and the Aare navigable.

The narrow vote and the strong weight placed upon the independence of communities at the time moved the cantonal parliament not to recognize the results of the referendum.

Over time it developed into the Lehrerseminar (1973), Teaching Institute, and finally the Pädagogische Fachhochschule (2001), or College of Education – both of which trained future teachers.

The front façade is covered by a brilliant and rare humanistic mural of allegorical female figures representing theology and the seven liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music).

The baroque structure stands out into the alley with its protruding tower topped by a bulbous dome (an architectural design that is rarely encountered in the German-speaking section of Switzerland).

Post buses to Bad Zurzach, Birr, Dättwil, Döttingen, Frick, Laufenburg, Linn, Mellingen, Mönthal, Remigen, Scherz and Thalheim leave regularly from the train station.