It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (Landkreis) of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub.

The urban agglomeration has 100,200 (2018)[3] and the city's catchment area, including the Main-Rhön region and parts of South Thuringia, 759,000 inhabitants.

From the 12th century until 1802 Schweinfurt was a Free imperial city within the Holy Roman Empire, around 1700 a humanistic centre and in 1770 began the 250-year industrial history.

[4] During the Cold War, the 1945 founded USAG Schweinfurt had the highest concentration of US combat units in the Federal Republic of Germany.

[5] Some important inventions have their origin in Schweinfurt: the pedal bike by Philipp Moritz Fischer (1853) as well as the freewheel (1889) and the coaster brake (1903) by Ernst Sachs.

To the beginnings of today's old town from the 12th century, 1 km west of the previous settlement between the two streams Marienbach and Höllenbach, there are different views.

In a letter from King William of Holland dated January 9, 1254, it is said that Schweinfurt used to be imperial city (... Swinforde, que olim imperii civitas fuerat).

1436/37 received the advice of the city from the Teutonic Knights for 18,000 guilders the castle on the Peterstirn and the associated land area with the villages Zell and Weipoltshausen, which belongs to Üchtelhausen today.

[citation needed] 1852 took place with the opening of the Ludwigs-Westbahn from Bamberg to the new Schweinfurt Stadt station the connection to the railway network.

Efforts to disperse the surviving machinery began immediately and the Luftwaffe deployed large numbers of interceptors along the corridor to Schweinfurt.

[14] Bombing also included the Second Raid on Schweinfurt on 14 October 1943 ("called Black Thursday because of the enormous loss of aircraft (60) and lives (600+)")[clarification needed] and Big Week in February 1944.

Although German planners initially thought it essential to purchase the entire output of the Swedish ball-bearing industry, losses in the production of bearings were actually made up from surpluses found within Germany in the aftermath of the first raid.

[citation needed] Hitler made restoration of ball bearing production a high priority and massive efforts were undertaken to repair and rebuild the factories,[specify] partly in bomb-proof underground facilities.

[citation needed] The 42nd Infantry Division (United States) entered Schweinfurt on 11 April 1945 and engaged in house-to-house fighting.

From the 1950s to the late 1990s, a civilian infrastructure similar to that of a small American town was successively built in the northwest of Schweinfurt.

Like many other West German cities and communities, Schweinfurt also experienced an unprecedented economic miracle in the 1950s and 1960s, and large-scale industry boomed.

After successful reconstruction and the boom years, the time of Mayor Kurt Petzold (SPD, 1974–1992) was marked by consolidation, but also by the oil crisis and recessions, with job cuts in the local large-scale industry.

[7] In the city dominated by the SPD, the CSU succeeded in 1992 for the first time to make the Lord Mayor, with the political cross-starter Gudrun Grieser.

[citation needed] The i-Campus Schweinfurt in the former Ledward Barracks and the new district of Bellevue in the former Askren Manor Housing Area deserve special mention.

The city is located in a climatically contrasting region, between the summer hot Mainfränkischen Plates in the south and the low mountain range in the north, with international winter sports in Oberhof.

The bourgeois east lies on the foothills of the Schweinfurter Rhön, is intersected by valleys with streams, with the above the Marienbach located old town and numerous detached houses, on the edge with vineyards and the city forest.

[citation needed] As a result of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the economic and geographical situation of Schweinfurt changed fundamentally.

At the end of the imperial city period in 1802 there were around 320 hectares of vines, which corresponds to today's largest Franconian wine-growing town in Nordheim am Main.

Today, with only 3.54 hectares of vineyards (2017),[18] the local viticulture has hardly any economic, but still cultural importance for the self-awareness and way of life of the city.

Due to the almost complete interruption of winegrowing, the vineyards were spared the major land consolidation of the 1970s, during which the historical structures were mostly destroyed.

Thereafter, contrary to the forecasts of the Bavarian State Statistics Office and the Bertelsmann Foundation, both of which merely continued the past demographic development, a positive turnaround occurred due to several factors not taken into account: refugees, US conversion, i-Campus Schweinfurt.

[27] According to a recent study by the Swiss Institute of Economic Research forecasters, Schweinfurt is one of the fastest-growing cities in Germany.

The study confirmed the city, among other things, the highest concentration of jobs in Germany, with particularly high Beschäftigungsanteil (employment share) in the German high-tech sector.

[citation needed] The Contor-2010 study, which was commissioned by the Manager Magazine, ranked Schweinfurt as one of the most dynamic cities in Europe in terms of development opportunities.

Schweinfurt's main landmarks include: The marketplace has a large Friedrich Rückert monument in the centre, around which weekly markets and many city festivals are held.