Paradies (literally: "paradise") is a former village, now a quarter of

Konstanz Konstanz (, , locally: ; also written as Constance in English) is a university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. The city houses the University of Konstanz and was th ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The district is located west of the Old Town on the southern shore of the

Seerhein The Seerhein ("Lake Rhine") is a river about four kilometres long, in the basin of Lake Constance. It is the outflow of the Upper Lake Constance and the main tributary of the Lower Lake Constance. The water level of the lower lake is about 30&n ...

; with an area of about 63.2

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

(, to be exact) and 6176 inhabitants (2007 census). In the

Late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...

, it was a fishing and farming village called ''Eggehusen''. Its original centre was the St Leonard's Chapel erected in the 14th century at the site of a former

Poor Clares The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare ( la, Ordo sanctae Clarae) – originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and later the Clarisses, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Second Order of Saint Francis ...

monastery with the name ''claustrum Paradysi apud Constantiam'' founded in 1186. In 1253 the nuns left their convent on the outskirts of Konstanz and moved to Schlatt near

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimate ...

; while the name ''Paradies'' stuck. The chapel was rebuilt in 1921, it today is consecrated to St Martin. Konstanz Paradies Karte 1847

In 1610, about 300 people were living in Paradies. The farmers in Paradies supplied the inhabitants of the city from their fields on the open space between the current federal road B 33 (Europe Street) and the city walls. Paradies then was a separate municipality. In 1639, the City of Konstanz created a new defensive earth wall and ditch (the ''Saubach''); Paradies was included inside this perimeter. The Paradies part of the structure included two towers, the ''Grießeggturm'' at the Gottlieber customs post, and one small castle named ''Paradieser Schlössle''. With the loss of arable land between Paradies and Konstanz, cultivation of vegetables shifted to the

Tägermoos The Tägermoos is an area of 1.54 km2 (380 acres) in Thurgau, Switzerland, wedged between the outskirts of the German city of Constance and the core village of the Swiss municipality of Tägerwilen. It lies on the south bank of the Seerhei ...

area west of Paradies, which was owned by the city of Konstanz, but was administratively in the Swiss canton of

Thurgau Thurgau (; french: Thurgovie; it, Turgovia), anglicized as Thurgovia, more formally the Canton of Thurgau, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of five districts and its capital is Frauenfeld. Thurgau is par ...

. When the city of Constance stopped operating a municipal bull stable, Paradies started its own. By 1880 the population had risen to nearly 1500. Today the number of farmers growing vegetables is steadily declining. In 1969, there were 25 of them in Paradies; in 2006 there were only eight. The last cattle farmer ceased operations in 1994. Until the summer of 2004, the municipal bus route No. 10 went from the city's cemetery to Paradies. Buses named ''Friedhof—Paradies'' ("Cemetery—Paradise") were often photographed.

External links

{{Authority control Konstanz (district)