Salzburg’s long history can be traced back to the Stone Age - but only in Baroque times it got really exciting! Here you will find a timeline with the most outstanding key events. Maybe you would also be interested in browsing the list of the Prince Archbishops. The first signs of settlements within today’s city limit date as far back as to Neolithic times. However, the first actual city that merged smaller Celtic communities was founded by Romans in 15 BC and named Iuvavum.

Traces of human settlements have been found in the area, dating to the Neolithic Age; probably it was later a Celt camp. Starting from 15 BCE, the small communities were grouped into a single town, which was named by the Romans as Juvavum. A municipium, from 45 CE it became one of the most important cities in the province of Noricum. Juvavum declined sharply after the collapse of the Norican frontier, such that by the late 7th century it had become a “near ruin".

The Life of Saint Rupert credits the saint with the city’s rebirth. When Theodo of Bavaria asked Rupert to become bishop c. 700, Rupert reconnoitered the river for the site of his basilica. Rupert chose Juvavum, ordained priests, and annexed the manor Piding. Rupert named the city “Salzburg", and then left to evangelize among the pagans. The name Salzburg literally means “Salt Castle", and derives its name from the barges carrying salt on the Salzach river, which were subject to a toll in the 8th century, as was customary for many communities and cities on European rivers. The Festung Hohensalzburg, the city’s fortress, was built in 1077 and expanded during the following centuries. Independence from Bavaria was secured in the late 14th century.

After the Roman Empire came to decay, Iuvavum was abandoned and fell into ruins. A monastery is documented from the 5th century, but it wasn’t until St. Rupert received the ruins as a present in 699 AD from the Duke of Bavaria that the city went uphill. Rupert became the city’s bishop, launched St. Peter’s Abbey and is until today the patron saint of Salzburg. The name Salzburg is documented since 755 AD. In 1077, work on the Fortress started. In 1166 a dispute between the archbishop of Salzburg and the German Emperor Barbarossa peaked in an arson that destroyed most of the city.

Salzburg is the only one to have been ruled as an independent state by a prince-archbishop and it is the only one of the many spiritual principalities of the Holy Roman Empire still to exist as an independent province. After the fall of the Roman Empire, its history followed that of the city of Salzburg. An ancient Celtic settlement, and later a Roman trading center named Juvavum, the town developed in the early 8th cent. Around the late 7th-century monastery of St. Peter.

By c.798 Salzburg was the seat of an archbishopric, and for almost 1,000 years it was the residence of the autocratic archbishops of Salzburg, the leading ecclesiastics of the German-speaking world. They became princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1278 and wielded their power with extreme intolerance. In the late 15th cent. The Jews were expelled, and in 1731–32 some 30,000 Protestants migrated to Prussia after a period of severe persecution. Secularized in 1802, Salzburg was transferred to Bavaria by the Peace of Schonbrunn (1809). The Congress of Vienna (1814–15) returned it to Austria. As of 2006, Salzburg’s Jewish community consists of little more than 100 people. The synagogue at Lasserstrasse 8 is still the religious center. On January 27, 2006, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Mozart, all 35 churches of Salzburg rang their bells a little after 8PM (local time) to celebrate the occasion.