Kempten (German: [ˈkɛmptn̩] ⓘ; Swabian: Kempte [ˈkɛmptə] ⓘ) is the largest town of Allgäu, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany.

In 15 BC Roman troops led by Nero Claudius Drusus and his brother Tiberius conquered and destroyed the existing Celtic settlement.

The original site of Cambodunum was then abandoned and the settlement moved to a strategically safer location on the Burghalde hill overlooking the river Iller.

Being still predominantly Alemannic, the town once more was destroyed by the Franks in 683 as a consequence of the city's support of an uprising against the Frankish kingdom.

Through the financial and lobbyist support of Charlemagne’s wife Hildegard, an Allemannic princess, the monastery came to be one of the most privileged of the Frankish Empire.

However in 1289, King Rudolf I of Germany also granted special privileges to the urban settlement in the river valley, making it the Free Imperial City of Kempten.

In 1652[5] Roman Giel of Gielsberg, the Abbot of Kempten, commissioned the architects Michael Beer and Johann Serro from Graubünden to build St. Lorenz Basilica as a new church to serve the parish and monastery, including a representative residence for the Duke-Abbots.

The Kempten University of Applied Sciences started in the winter semester of 1978–79 with 89 students and since then expanded and now accommodates more than 2800 students in eight degree courses: There are also three college preparatory schools, called Gymnasium, (Allgäu-Gymnasium, Hildegardis-Gymnasium, Carl-von-Linde-Gymnasium) offering secondary education to the entire region of the Allgäu.