Zwickau (German pronunciation: [ˈtsvɪkaʊ] ⓘ; Upper Sorbian: Šwikawa; Czech: Cvikov or Zvíkov; Polish: Ćwików) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,.

The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: Zwickauer Mulde; progression: Mulde→ Elbe→ North Sea), and lies in a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast.

It enters Zwickau between Zwickau-Cainsdorf and Zwickau-Bockwa, and leaves at Zwickau-Schlunzig near the Volkswagen plant, and is spanned by 17 bridges within the city.

The Silver Road, Saxony's longest tourist route, connects Dresden with Zwickau.

The name Zwickau is probably a Germanization of the Sorbian toponym Šwikawa, which derives from Svarozič, the Slavic Sun and fire god.

Because of the silver ore deposits in the Erzgebirge, Zwickau developed in the 15th and 16th centuries and grew to be an important economic and cultural centre of Saxony.

The late Gothic church of St. Catharine has an altar piece ascribed to Lucas Cranach the elder, and is remembered because Thomas Müntzer was once pastor there (1520–22).

Early printed books from the Middle Ages, historical documents, letters and books are kept in the City Archives (e.g. Meister Singer volumes by Hans Sachs (1494–1576)), and in the School Library founded by scholars and by the city clerk Stephan Roth during the Reformation.

In 1520 Martin Luther dedicated his treatise "On the Freedom of the Christian Man" to his friend Hermann Muehlpfort, the Lord Mayor of Zwickau.

[citation needed] The old city of Zwickau, perched on a hill, is surrounded by heights with extensive forests and a municipal park.

In the Old Town the Cathedral and the Gewandhaus (cloth merchants' hall) originate in the 16th century and when Schneeberg silver was traded.

During World War II, in 1942, a Nazi show trial of the members of the Czarny Legion [pl] Polish underground resistance organization from Gostyń was held in Zwickau, after which 12 members were executed in Dresden, and several dozen were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, where 37 of them died.

[10] A subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located in Zwickau, whose prisoners were mostly Poles and Russians, but also Italians, French, Hungarians, Jews, Czechs, Germans and others.

A major employer is Volkswagen which assembles its ID.3, ID.4 and ID.5 models, as well as Audi and Cupra EV's in the Zwickau-Mosel vehicle plant.

The coal mines of Zwickau and the neighbouring Oelsnitz-Lugau coalfield contributed significantly to the industrialisation of the region and the city.

Many industrial branches developed in the city in the wake of the coal mining industry: mining equipment, iron and steel works, textile, machinery in addition to chemical, porcelain, paper, glass, dyestuffs, wire goods, tinware, stockings, and curtains.

Auto Union racing cars, developed by Ferdinand Porsche and Robert Eberan von Eberhorst, driven by Bernd Rosemeyer, Hans Stuck, Tazio Nuvolari, Ernst von Delius, became well known nationally and internationally.

The production of the Trabant was discontinued after German reunification, but Volkswagen built a new factory in the nearby Mosel area to the north of the city and Sachsenring is now a supplier for the automobile industry.

Uranium milling ended in 1989, and after the unification the Wismut machine building plant was sold to a private investor.

[12] The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Rainer Eichhorn of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who served from 1990 to 2001.