The city of Jerichow lies on an old branch of the river Elbe between Stendal and Genthin, 31 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Magdeburg.

[6] There used to be a castle backed by a man-made tributary of the Elbe River, but today only a lump of earth remains with the name of Burgberg (lit.

These buildings are considered as important works of the Romanesque brick style, the oldest of its kind east of the Elbe River.

In 1336 the town was completely destroyed by the flooding from the Elbe River but it was rebuilt and founded in its present location by a local nobleman, Johann III von Buch.

[8] Around 1530, with the Reformation, the Lutheran doctrine took hold of the town and, in 1552, the Monastery was secularized by Hans von Krusemark; a part of the convent's building was reserved for the Elector of Brandenburg's domains.

During the Thirty Years War, the Imperial and Swedish armies devastated the village and monastery of Jerichow in 1631.

From 1853 to 1856, at the request of King Frederick William IV of Prussia, Ferdinand von Quast restored the Monastery Church.

"[11] The coat-of-arms, designed by the municipal heraldist Jörg Mantzsch, presents in the middle the stylized collegiate church of the Jerichow Monastery with a wavy bar at the bottom.

The wavy bar symbolizes the Elbe River, which had, from the earliest times, significant importance to the history of the town.

Until 1999 Jerichow did not have an official coat-of-arms but for centuries it had used as its temporary symbol the changing image of St. George in his armor with the lance and the dragon.

The earliest seals showed him dressed in a simple robe and standing on the downed and pierced dragon; only in the Middle Ages and then again towards the end of the 19th century, he was transformed into a knight, complete with a set of armor, a helmet, a shield and more.

Old archival documents from 1779: "In Jerichow ist die Stadtkirche dem Heiligen Georg geweiht; hierin erklärt sich der Zusammenhang zum Wappenbild.

The first visual evidence of Jerichow's coat-of-arms shows a fairly naturalistic representation with accessories and in incorrect tinctures).

[8] The Industrial Revolution came in the 19th century, leading to the decline of the crafts as well as the economic importance of Jerichow, but the fortunes of the town were revived in 1899 with the establishment of a provincial hospital in the middle of the nearby pine forest.

Today, after an extensive modernization and expansion in 1991, it operates as an AWO (workers' Welfare) hospital[15] specializing in psychiatry, psychotherapy, neurosciences and psychotherapeutic medicine.