From its foundation as an imperial Roman river fort, the city has been the political, economic and cultural centre of the surrounding region.

In 179, a major new Roman fort, called Castra Regina ("fortress by the river Regen"), was built for Legio III Italica during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

[8] It was an important camp at the most northerly point of the Danube; it corresponds to what is today the core of Regensburg's Old City or Altstadt east of the Obere and Untere Bachgasse and west of the Schwanenplatz.

In 792, Regensburg hosted the ecclesiastical section of Charlemagne's General Assembly, the bishops in council who condemned the heresy of the nontrinitarian adoptionism doctrine taught by their Spanish counterparts, Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgell.

These events had a wide impact on the cultural history of the Czech lands, as they were consequently part of the Roman Catholic and not the Slavic-Orthodox world.

Although the Imperial city had adopted the Reformation, the town remained the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop and several abbeys.

In addition, it was seen as the traditional capital of the region Bavaria (not the state), acted as functional co-capital of the Empire (second to the Emperor's court at Vienna) due to the presence of the Perpetual Diet, and it was the residence of the Emperor's Commissary-Principal to the same diet, who with one very brief exception was a prince himself (for many years the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, still resident in the town).

In 1810 Dalberg ceded Regensburg to the Kingdom of Bavaria, he himself being compensated by the award of Fulda and Hanau to him under the title of "Grand Duke of Frankfurt".

The Jewish community was persecuted after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, many Jews fled in the following years, and some were also expelled to Poland; thanks, however, to a Polish-German agreement they were allowed to return to the city.

[13] On November 9, 1938, during the Kristallnacht, the Regensburg Synagogue and several Jewish homes and stores were destroyed, and around 220 Jews were arrested, some were also deported to the Dachau concentration camp.

[14] In the final months of World War II, in March and April 1945, the Regensburg subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located in the city, with 460 forced laborers of various nationalities, 40 of whom died.

The city's most important cultural loss was that of the Romanesque church of Obermünster, which was destroyed in a March 1945 air raid and was not rebuilt (the belfry survived).

Also, Regensburg's slow economic recovery after the war ensured that historic buildings were not torn down and replaced by newer ones.

When the upswing in restoration[clarification needed] reached Regensburg in the late 1960s, the prevailing mindset had turned in favour of preserving the city's heritage.

Since the 1990s, several well-known hightech companies have been located in Regensburg, such as Infineon and OSRAM, contributing to the city's current wealth.

The city has also added several outdoor museums, known as "Document" sites, which give an overview of specific topics such as Roman, Jewish and Bavarian history.

The Regensburger Schlossfestspiele has been held in the inner courtyard of the St. Emmeram's Abbey every July from 2003, sponsored by the former princely house of Thurn und Taxis.

[31] Moreover, premiering in 2011, Joseph Berlinger's play "Mei Fähr Lady," a story about three "students" taking a crash course in Bavarian dialect, has been performed at Regensburg's Turmtheater over 300 times.

[33] The Old Town of Regensburg with nearly 1,500 listed buildings offers a huge cultural diversity from Roman to modern times.

With over 500 bars, restaurants, clubs, and other venues in the inner city alone, Regensburg provides a rich and diverse nightlife due to its young population.

Over the last hundred years, the city's population has grown rapidly, exceeding 100,000 in 1945 due to the influx of Germans who were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries at the end of the war.

The municipal elections in Bavaria of 2020 delivered the following results: Regensburg is subdivided into 18 boroughs (Stadtbezirke): Innenstadt, Stadtamhof, Steinweg-Pfaffenstein, Sallern-Gallingkofen, Konradsiedlung-Wutzlhofen, Brandlberg-Keilberg, Reinhausen, Weichs, Schwabelweis, Ostenviertel, Kasernenviertel, Galgenberg, Kumpfmühl-Ziegetsdorf-Neuprüll, Großprüfening-Dechbetten-Königswiesen, Westenviertel, Ober- und Niederwinzer-Kager, Oberisling-Graß, Burgweinting-Harting.

Each borough contains a number of localities (Ortsteile), which can have historic roots in older municipalities that became urbanized and incorporated into the city.

GE Aviation founded a greenfield site to innovate, develop and produce turbine machinery components with a new manufacturing casting technology.

Aside from the industrial sector, tourism contributes a lot to Regensburg's economical growth, especially since 2006, when the city gained status as UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[7] Regensburg Hauptbahnhof (central station) is connected to lines to Munich, Nuremberg, Passau, Weiden and Hof and Ingolstadt and Ulm.

[41] Regensburg's energy is mainly supplied by the German company E.ON, one of the world's largest electric utility service providers.

Among them are the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), the Regensburg Centre for Interventional Immunology (RCI), the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) and the BioPark, the Bavarian biotech cluster.

The city also has several secondary education institutions, both public and private, representing all levels of the German school system.

EV Regensburg [de] is the local ice hockey club, currently playing in the DEL2, Germany's second highest professional league.