Bad Radkersburg

Bad Radkersburg (Slovene: Radgona, old Hungarian name Regede) is a city in the southeast of the Austrian state of Styria in the district of Südoststeiermark. On the other side of the river Mur in Slovenia lies its twin city Gornja Radgona.

Bad Radkersburg is a spa sporting a thermal spring with a temperature of 80 °C. This and the longest sunshine duration in Austria make the town an attractive site of tourism with 100,000 stays per year.

History

It is not known when Radkersburg was first settled or where the first settlement was located. It is also not known when Radkersburg fell under princely territorial rule. Most likely, Radkersburg originally did not belong to the Duke of Styria, but to an aristocrat to whom it had been given by the king. Contemporary research suggests that Radkersburg was not founded by Ottokar II of Bohemia (1232-1278), but by Albert I of Habsburg (1255-1308). The appearance of the city today is apparently based on a precise plan. Radkersburg was surrounded by a wall with towers in the end of the 13th century. It was elevated to an imperial fortress in 1582 by the Reichstag of Augsburg. Oberradkersburg (Gornja Radgona), on the other side of the Mur River, has been a part of Slovenia since 1919. The bridge across the Mur was reopened on October 12, 1969 which led to rapprochement between Austria and Yugoslavia. A thermal spring was made accessible in 1978, soon followed by an extension to the bathing site.

Population

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
1869	2,387	—
1880	2,534	+6.2%
1890	2,630	+3.8%
1900	2,569	−2.3%
1910	2,852	+11.0%
1923	2,218	−22.2%
1934	2,076	−6.4%
1939	2,004	−3.5%
1951	2,247	+12.1%
1961	2,040	−9.2%
1971	2,007	−1.6%
1981	1,745	−13.1%
1991	1,938	+11.1%
2001	1,599	−17.5%
2011	1,361	−14.9%

Personalities

Andreas Walsperger (born ca. 1415 in Radkersburg; time of death unknown), cartographer
Carl I. Ferdinand Count of Montenari (*1632), Austrian general
Franz Leopold von Nádasdy auf Fogaras (1708-1783), military leader
Leopold Vietoris (1891-2002), mathematician
Wolfgang Fasching (born 1967), extreme sportsman
Aribert Heim (1914-1992), Nazi war criminal
Peter Luttenberger (born 1972), cyclist

Notable people living in the town

Dietrich Kittner

Sister cities and twin cities

- Varaždin, Croatia
- Lenti, Hungary

References

↑ Statistik Austria - Bevölkerung zu Jahres- und Quartalsanfang, 2013-01-01.

Municipalities in the district of Südoststeiermark

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