Passau

Town in southeast Bavaria, Germany, 148 km/92 mi northeast of Munich; population (2005 est) 50,700. It lies on the Austrian border at the junction of the rivers Inn and Ilz with the Danube. There are machinery, textile, and pharmaceutical industries. The Treaty of Passau (1552) between Maurice, Elector of Saxony, and the future emperor Ferdinand I allowed the Lutherans full religious liberty and prepared the way for the Peace of Augsburg: see Reformation.

Passau was originally a Celtic settlement, and later a Roman camp. In 739 St Boniface made it a bishopric; the bishop became a prince of the Empire in the 13th century, and the town developed into a river port of great importance. On the suppression of the bishopric in 1803 the town became a Bavarian possession (the present bishopric was established in 1817). Passau possesses a wealth of historical streets and buildings. It is dominated by its massive baroque and Gothic cathedral (14th–17th centuries) and by a great fortress, begun in the 13th century. The old town lies on a narrow strip of land between the rivers Inn and Danube with stepped lanes down to the rivers, and houses in the German–Italian style.