Bergheim () is a municipality in the district of Salzburg-Umgebung in the state of

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. The Plainberg with its Maria Plain pilgrimage church forms the border between Bergheim and the city of

to the south.

History

The area occupied by modern-day Bergheim has been constantly inhabited since

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

times (10,000 B.C.), as evidenced by archeological finds on Muntigler Hill. Other finds from the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

(3rd century B.C.) point to uninterrupted inhabitation of the area from prehistoric times onward. In the first century, B.C., the

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

began settling in the area. The Celtic kingdom of

Noricum Noricum () is the Latin name for the kingdom or federation of tribes that included most of modern Austria and part of Slovenia. In the first century AD, it became a province of the Roman Empire. Its borders were the Danube to the north, R ...

was incorporated into the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

in 16 B.C. Two Roman manors believed to date from this period have been excavated in nearby Kerath and Kemating. In the year 488 B.C. the Romans withdrew on the orders of King Odoacer. Around the year 650 the Germanic Bavarii began to settle in the Salzburg area. One of the largest burial grounds in the Flachgau district, unearthed in 1896 near the parish church, dates from this period. The name Bergheim is believed to have originated during this period, the syllable ''-heim'' being a typical place name given by the Bavarii. The earliest documented appearance of the name dates from 927 A.D. in a title transferring ownership of the church and its goods from Archbishop Adalbert to a Deacon Reginold. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Lords of Bergheim held important positions in the Archbishopric of Salzburg, benefitting the municipality with fishing rights and the right to tithe and hold court. After the ruling Bergheim and Radecker families died out in the late 14th century, ownership transferred to the Archbishopric of Salzburg and the law court was moved to Radeck. During the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

(1792-1815) much of Bergheim was destroyed as the French Army crossed the Salzach River at Laufen and laid siege to Salzburg. When the Kingdom of Bavaria ceded the state of Salzburg to

in 1816, Bergheim became a border town and has remained on the Austrian-German border ever since.

References

Cities and towns in Salzburg-Umgebung District {{Salzburg-geo-stub