[4] Landau was later part of France from 1680 to 1815,[5] during which it was one of the Décapole, the ten free cities of Alsace, and received its modern fortifications by Louis XIV's military architect Vauban in 1688–99, making the little town (its 1789 population was approximately 5,000) one of Europe's strongest citadels.

[7] During this siege King Joseph I arrived at Landau coming from Vienna in a newly developed convertible carriage.

The French recaptured Landau once more in a final siege which lasted from 6 June to 20 August 1713 by Marshal General Villars.

After Napoleon's Hundred Days following his escape from Elba, Landau, which had remained French, was granted to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1815 and became the capital of one of the thirteen Bezirksämter (counties) of the Bavarian Rheinkreis, later renamed Pfalz.

In the 19th century, the former fortifications gave way to a ring road that encircles the old town centre, from which the old industrial buildings have been excluded.

A convention hall, the Festhalle, was built in Art Nouveau style, 1905–07 on a rise overlooking the town park and facing the modernist Bundesamt, the regional government building.

The "landau," a luxury open carriage with a pair of folding tops, was invented in the town during the War of the Spanish Succession.