Hamburg-Altstadt

Altstadt, more precisely Hamburg-Altstadt – as not to be mistaken with Hamburg-Altona-Altstadt – is one of the inner-city districts of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany.HistoryThe area of today's Altstadt had a minor Bronze Age settlement dating from the 9th or 8th century BC. An Ingaevonian settlement at this location was known by the name "Treva" – a strategic trading node on amber routes during Iron Age and Late Antiquity.In the 8th century CE, Saxon merchants established what was to become the nucleus of Hamburg: the "Hammaburg", then a refuge fort located at today's Domplatz, the site of the former cathedral. Under Frankish rule, a baptistery was installed in 804 and Hammaburg strengthened by Charlemagne in 811. Quickly, the place grew to a sizable market town, declared a bishop's see in 831, an archbishop's see a year later. For the next 600 years, the history of Altstadt was equivalent to the history of Hamburg.By the end of the 15th century, the then Hanseatic city-republic and free Imperial city had accumulated various territorial possessions in its hinterland. Eventually, Hamburg's 13th-century city-walls received a couple of extensions: first in the 1530s, then again in the 1620s to include all of adjacent Neustadt.