Notable architectural features include the Eisenmarkt and the steep gradients and tightly packed street layout of a medieval town.

Wetzlar lies in the Lahn-Dill area in Middle Hesse on the river Lahn, not far downstream from where it changes direction from south to west in the heights near the mouth of the Dill.

The low mountain ranges around Wetzlar to the northwest, northeast and south, on the other hand, are heavily wooded and very thinly populated.

The core area of Wetzlar with 30,684 inhabitants is divided into twelve boroughs (Stadtbezirke): Altstadt, Neustadt, Hauser Berg, Büblingshausen, Sturzkopf, Stoppelberger Hohl, Nauborner Straße, Silhöfer Aue/Westend, Altenberger Strasse, Dalheim, Dillfeld and Niedergirmes.

The northwestern part of the urban area lies on the Lahntal silt, sand and gravel, which have only slightly hardened.

They were deposited by the River Lahn, at a point where its valley (which is still up to one kilometre wide) to the west becomes increasingly narrow and deep.

Iron ore extraction and smelting in and around Wetzlar has been documented as early as the Celtic La Tène period.

The Conradine Gebhard, Count in the Wetterau, and as of 904 Duke of Lorraine, had a Church of the Saviour consecrated in 897, which replaced earlier structures.

The monastery's forerunners were surely part of the crystallization point at which believers, traders and craftsmen met, above all on holidays.

The Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–1190) created a Reichsvogtei (roughly "Imperial Bailiwick"), and in 1180 put Wetzlar's citizens on the same level as Frankfurt's.

When the rightful king, Rudolph I (r. 1273–1291), heard of this and came to Wetzlar, the city leaders seized Tile Kolup and handed him over.

Decades-long feuds with the Counts of Solms, who were trying to make Wetzlar into a Solms-domain city, threatened the vital commercial road.

Besides Vienna (residence of the Emperor) and Regensburg (seat of the Imperial Diet) Wetzlar thus gained a central function within the Holy Roman Empire and although it remained a tiny town it was regarded as one of its capitals.

The court became the town's main employer; at the Empire's dissolution in 1806, it had a staff of about 150 including 20 judges, while a further 750 derived their income from it.

In 1803 Wetzlar came under the rule of Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, the Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and a close ally of Napoleon Bonaparte and thus lost its status as a free town.

It was replaced by a school of law founded by Karl von Dalberg in 1808, which not only continued the Reichskammergericht's function of training constitutional lawyers, but also employed many of the former staff as teachers.

A former legal trainee, Franz Stickel (1786–1848), was selected to translate the Code Napoleon that Dalberg introduced in his territories in 1810–11.

[15] After the Congress of Vienna, the area passed to Prussia in 1815, and in 1822 it became the seat of the newly formed district of Wetzlar, which later became an exclave of the Rhine Province.

As well, world-famous optical and precision mechanics companies such as Leitz (Leica), Hensoldt (Zeiss Optronics in the past, now Airbus), Pfeiffer Vacuum, Philips, Loh, Seibert, Hollmann, Minox and many others set up shop in the town.

For more than one hundred years, the iron ore found in the Lahn-Dill area (haematite) was processed at the Sophienhütte ironworks.

In the Second World War, the town, being an industrial stronghold, also became the target of heavy bombing, which destroyed much of the railway station neighbourhood and Niedergirmes.

After the Second World War ended in 1945, Wetzlar found itself in the American occupation zone, and later, once new boundaries had been drawn, in the Federal State of Hesse.

By the beginning of the 1950s, owing to the huge numbers of displaced people from lost territories and refugees flooding into the town, the population had doubled to 30,000.

On 1 January 1977, as part of Hesse's municipal reforms, Wetzlar was united with the neighbouring town of Gießen and fourteen outlying communities to form the city of Lahn.

One of the most important companies in the area of microscopy is Leica Microsystems (formerly known as Ernst Leitz), which in its peak times employed over 7000 people in the city.

The Business park Spilburg, former barracks, became home to a number of innovative enterprises, particularly in the area of optics/precision mechanics, information technology and services.

If they join a special class they will enjoy benefits, such as a whole day dedicated to their chosen subject (science or sports) and different fieldtrips.

The Käthe-Kollwitz Schule is a vocational center, which is specialized in nutrition, health, personal hygiene, and social affairs.

Named after the Johann Wolfang Goethe (1749–1832), a famous German writer and statesman, the Goetheschule Wetzlar it is the biggest upper secondary school in Hesse with over 1000 students and ca.

A building meant to serve as the town hall, built in the mid 14th century, was used by the Reichskammergericht as their seat and offices from 1689 to 1806, after many remodellings.