Augsnurg was founded in 15 BC under the rule of Emperor Augustus. The city, over the years, grew to become a major trading centre. The imperial city achieved its greatest prosperity in the 15th and 16th centuries when international trade and the banking business of the Fugger and Welser merchant families thrived. The noble Renaissance buildings that give the city its unique character date from this period.

City history, exhibition of works by Augsburg 's master goldsmiths and silversmiths Brecht House and Mozart House: Memorials to two of the city's famous sons.

The Augustusbrunnen (in front of Rathaus) (1589-94) by Hubert Gerhart, the Merkurbrunnen (1596-99) by Adriaen de Vries, and the Herkulesbrunnen (in front of Schaetzler Palais) (1596-1602) by Adriaen de Vries

(1525), the world's first social housing project established by Jakob Fugger II: it is Europe 's oldest housing estate and founded by Jacob Fugger, a member of what was then the richest family in Europe . The intention was to provide homes for the poor citizens of the town. Today it is a home for senior and retired citizens. There are a total of 52 houses lined in 6 streets. 

(Cath. Cathedral, a pecularity of Augsburg is that many of its curches exist under the same name as a Catholic and a Protestant building, a sign of the influence of the rich, mostly Protestant patrician merchants (eg. the Fuggers et al)). (1047-63, 1331-43, 1410-31) This long history of building and rebuilding explains the various styles from early Romanesque to late Gothic. Interior: Five magnificent stained-glass paintings in choir windows. Some remains of frescoes (11th cent).

(Catholic parish church): Formerly monastery of the Benedictines who resisted the Reformation (long building hiatus 1500-1600). 1710 a new Baroque chapel (St. Ulrich) is ceded to the Protestants as a "Predigersaal" (preachers' hall Interior: Three magnificent altar shrines in choir and side-arms concieved as a unity by Johann Degler (1604-07), by the same: chancel and organ (1608). St. Ulrich's Gruft (1762) Baroque in the underground !