It also serves Abstatt, Bad Rappenau, Bad Wimpfen, Beilstein, Brackenheim, Cleebronn, Eberstatt, Ellhofen, Eppingen, Flein, Gemmingen, Güglingen, Ilsfeld, Ittlingen, Kirchardt, Lauffen am Neckar, Lehrensteinsfeld, Leingarten, Löwenstein, Massenbachhausen, Neckarwestheim, Nordheim, Obersulm, Pfaffenhofen, Schwaigern, Siegelsbach, Talheim, Untergruppenbach, Weinsberg, Wüstenrot, and Zaberfeld as a regional economic centre.

In 741, Heilbronn is first mentioned in an official document of the Diocese of Würzburg as villa Helibrunna (together with a Michaelsbasilica), and in 841, King Louis the German set up court here for a period of time.

Later during the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights obtained ownership of a large area south of Heilbronn which would remain owned by that order until German Mediatisation in 1805.

Because of the infrastructure thus created, during the 14th century Heilbronn grew attractive to merchants and craftspeople, who now demanded the right to determine their own fate.

A relationship with the Holy Roman Emperor and a treaty with the Electorate of the Palatinate in effect from 1417 to 1622 strengthened Heilbronn's position and kept the House of Württemberg at bay.

The political stability enjoyed by the city during the 15th century enabled it to expand, and many of its historic structures, such as the Kilianskirche (1455–60), trace their origins to that era.

After he had spent some time in the Hohenlohe Plains and collected similarly minded characters around him, he returned to Heilbronn in April 1525 just as the German Peasants' War was getting into full swing.

But while that occupation of the city only lasted several months, the French were only persuaded to leave the surrounding areas in 1693, after a large defensive army had been put into the field and fortifications had been erected.

During the 18th century, archives suggest all members of the city council enjoyed some sort of formal education; Schiller and Goethe came to visit; and elaborate buildings were being constructed in the Rococo style.

In 1815, Heilbronn again became a staging area for major armies ahead of the campaign against Napoleon, and 10,000 troops paraded in front of Emperor Franz of Austria and more than one hundred German princes and generals in the Theresienwiese.

Tsar Alexander I of Russia met in Heilbronn with the Baltic Baroness Juliane von Krüdener, who talked him into founding the "Holy Alliance".

In the 1860s the city's train tracks were extended to Heidelberg via Bad Wimpfen, to Würzburg via Osterburken, and to Crailsheim (and later on to Nuremberg) via Schwäbisch Hall.

[citation needed] With the dissolution of monarchy in the German Reich as a result of World War I, Heilbronn became part of the Free People's State of Württemberg in 1918.

Hitler himself was able to give his speech in the city's community center Harmonie, but the SPD had the majority in Heilbronn over the NSDAP as late as the elections on March 5, 1933.

At the same time the previously independent communities of Böckingen, Sontheim, and Neckargartach were annexed, and with 72,000 residents Heilbronn then was the second largest city in Württemberg.

Starting in 1942 during World War II, the salt mines in and around Heilbronn were used to store art and artifacts from Germany, France, and Italy.

After a ten-day battle, with the allies advancing over the strategically important Neckar crossings, the war ended for the destroyed city, and it was occupied by the U.S. Army on April 12, 1945.

Pursuant to the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979, Pershing II intermediate-range nuclear missiles were stationed just uphill of Heilbronn in the Waldheide.

This further transformed the city centre, and an extension of the S-Bahn towards Öhringen opened on December 10, 2005, marking the completion of the east–west axis of the Baden-Wuerttemburg regional transportation system.

More than 2.3 million visitors came to the garden and city exhibition in 2019, which took place on a former commercial site of about 40 hectares located directly north of the main station.

[10] Other major new buildings in the city area in recent years include two Neckar bridges, the two shopping centres Stadtgalerie and Klosterhof, the experimenta Science Center and the Bildungscampus.

After the Protestant reformation of Heilbronn was complete the city remained Lutheran for centuries and the council and citizens accepted the Augsburg Confession without dissent.

Since the 1970s, after guest workers and immigrants from Islamic or Russian-Orthodox countries settled here, these faiths are practiced by a growing part of the population and numerous mosques have been created since the 1990s in the city and county of Heilbronn.

Over the years, the following, formerly independent towns or communities, have been annexed to Heilbronn: Figures reflect city limits at the time and are estimates (until 1870) or Census data (¹), or official extensions thereof, counting only primary residences.

Together with the adjacent Logentheater of the Theaterforum K3, completed in 2001, the Salon 3 and the BOXX the Heilbronn Theatre offers drama, musical and opera performances.

The programme includes in-house productions and own play developments, workshops with students, readings, performance pieces, concerts, open-stage formats and party series.

Friedrich von Alberti (1795-1878), who gave the name Triassic to the sequence of Buntsandstein, Muschelkalk and Keuper, was particularly responsible for research into the history of the earth in and around Heilbronn.

Currently the S 4 takes travellers from Karlsruhe through the central train station past the centre of town all the way to the Öhringen borough of Cappel (since December 11, 2005).

Whilst the original Straßenbahn of Heilbronn, nicknamed the Spatzenschaukel (German for "sparrows' swing"), was discontinued on April 1, 1955, the city used electrically powered trolley buses until 1960.

Grammar and middle schools (some include vocational training programs) are Albrecht-Dürer-Schule Neckargartach, Elly-Heuss-Knapp-Schule Böckingen, Fritz-Ulrich-Schule Böckingen, Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule, Grund- und Hauptschule mit Werkrealschule Biberach, Grund- und Hauptschule mit Werkrealschule Frankenbach, Ludwig-Pfau-Schule, Rosenauschule, Staufenbergschule Sontheim, Wartbergschule and Wilhelm-Hauff-Schule.