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Luxembourg City

Capital of Luxembourg

  • 16 min read
  • 9 chapters
Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg city. At the right: part of the Parliament building (Chambre des députés)
Cayambe · CC BY-SA 3.0

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Through Roman Empire

As of 31 December 2025, Luxembourg City has a population of 137,696 inhabitants, which is more than three times the population of the country's second most populous commune (Esch-sur-Alzette). The population consists of 160 nationalities. Foreigners represent 69.5% of the city's population, whilst Luxembourgers represent 30.5% of the population, making it the commune with the highest proportion of foreign residents in Luxembourg.

In 2024, Luxembourg was ranked by the IMF as having the highest GDP per capita in the world at $140,310 (PPP), with the city having developed into a banking and administrative centre. In the 2019 Mercer worldwide survey of 231 cities, Luxembourg was placed first for personal safety, while it was ranked 18th for quality of living.

Luxembourg is one of the de facto capitals of the European Union (alongside Brussels, Frankfurt and Strasbourg), as it is the seat of several institutions, agencies and bodies, including the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors, the Secretariat of the European Parliament, the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the European Investment Bank, the European Investment Fund, the European Stability Mechanism, Eurostat, as well as other European Commission departments and services. The Council of the European Union meets in the city for three months annually.

History

Development as a fortress

In the Roman era, a fortified tower may have been constructed to guard the crossing of two Roman roads that met on the territory of what is now Luxembourg City, although historian Jemp Kunnert claims no structure is believed to have existed at said crossing. Some of the earliest known settlements within modern city boundaries were established by Frankish colonizers in the Alzette valley around what is now Dommeldange, Pfaffenthal and the Grund. As of 926, 73 inhabitants were living in the valley between Dommeldange and Clausen.

In 963, through an exchange treaty with the abbey of Saint Maximin in Trier, Siegfried I of the Ardennes - a close relative of King Louis II of France and Emperor Otto the Great - acquired the castellum Lucilinburhuc ("small castle"), a military structure built around the 9th or early 10th century on what is now the Fish Market. This structure would serve as an outpost to the fortified castle - which retained the name of Lucilinburhuc - which Siegfried then began constructing on the Bock Fiels ("rock"), mentioned for the first time in the aforementioned exchange treaty.

In 987, Archbishop Egbert of Trier consecrated five altars in the Church of the Redemption (today St. Michael's Church). At a Roman road intersection near the church, the Fish Market appeared, around which the city developed.

The city, because of its location and natural geography, has through history been a place of strategic military significance. The first fortifications were built as early as the 10th century. By the mid-13th century and the reign of Countess Ermesinde, who granted the city its charter in 1244, Luxembourg had expanded westward around the new St. Nicholas Church (today the Cathedral of Notre Dame), with new walls built that included an area of 5 hectares (12 acres). In about 1340, under the reign of John the Blind, new fortifications were built that stood until 1867.

In 1443, the Burgundians under Philip the Good conquered Luxembourg. Luxembourg became part of the Burgundian, and later Spanish and Austrian empires (See Spanish Netherlands and Spanish Road) and under those Habsburg administrations Luxembourg Castle was repeatedly strengthened so that by the 16th century, Luxembourg itself was one of the strongest fortifications in Europe. Subsequently, the Burgundians, the Spanish, the French, the Spanish again, the Austrians, the French again, and the Prussians conquered Luxembourg.

On 11 June 1554, during a storm over the city, lightning struck the church of the Franscican convent, on the current site of the Place Guillaume II, the attic of which was serving as a gunpowder magazine. The ensuing explosion sent flaming pieces of the church roof flying into a wide radius, setting fire to the mostly thatched or shingled rooves of buildings. A large part of the Ville Haute was destroyed, causing an unknown number of casualties. Dutch military engineer Sebastiaan van Noyen was tasked with drawing a reconstruction plan, but most of his proposals failed to be implemented in following years, being disregarded by citizens when rebuilding their homes. His vision of a large new central square, the forum novum, was only realised in 1671, with the creation of the Place d'Armes.

In the 17th century, the first casemates were built; initially, Spain built 23 km (14 mi) of tunnels, starting in 1644. These were then enlarged under French rule by Marshal Vauban, and augmented again under Austrian rule in the 1730s and 1740s.

During the French Revolutionary Wars, the city was occupied by France twice: once, briefly, in 1792–93, and, later, after a seven-month siege. Luxembourg held out for so long under the French siege that French politician and military engineer Lazare Carnot called Luxembourg "the best fortress in the world, except Gibraltar", giving rise to the city's nickname: the 'Gibraltar of the North'.

Nonetheless, the Austrian garrison eventually surrendered, and as a consequence, Luxembourg was annexed by the French Republic, becoming part of the département of Forêts, with Luxembourg City as its préfecture. Under the 1815 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Napoleonic Wars, Luxembourg City was placed under Prussian military control as a part of the German Confederation, although sovereignty passed to the House of Orange-Nassau, in personal union with the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Transition to a modern city

After the Luxembourg Crisis, the 1867 Treaty of London required Luxembourg to dismantle the fortifications in Luxembourg City. By that time, the city had an area of 127 hectares (310 acres), while the surrounding defensive works took up 177 hectares (440 acres), around which a building restriction perimeter of nearly 1 kilometre (0.62 mi), first established by the Austrians in 1749 for security reasons, had made further urbanisation impossible. Their demolition, which would signify the opening of the city, took sixteen years, cost 1.5 million gold francs, and required the destruction of over 24 km (15 mi) of underground defences and 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of casemates, batteries, barracks, etc. Furthermore, the Prussian garrison was to be withdrawn.

When, in 1890, Grand Duke William III died without any male heirs, the Grand Duchy passed out of Dutch hands, and into an independent line under Grand Duke Adolphe. Thus, Luxembourg, which had hitherto been independent in theory only, became a truly independent country, and Luxembourg City regained some of the importance that it had lost in 1867 by becoming the capital of a fully independent state.

Despite Luxembourg's best efforts to remain neutral in the First World War, it was occupied by Germany on 2 August 1914. On 30 August, Helmuth von Moltke moved his headquarters to Luxembourg City, closer to his armies in France in preparation for a swift victory. However, the victory never came, and Luxembourg would play host to the German high command for another four years. At the end of the occupation, Luxembourg City was the scene of an attempted communist revolution; on 9 November 1918, communists declared a socialist republic, but it lasted only a few hours.

In 1920 and 1921, the city limits were greatly expanded, with the communes of Eich, Hamm, Hollerich, and Rollingergrund all merging with Luxembourg City. Until then, the city proper had only had an area of 3.55 km2 (1.37 sq mi); the merger gave Luxembourg City a new area of 51.52 km2 (19.89 sq mi), making the city the largest commune in the country (a position that it would hold until 1978).

In 1940, Germany occupied Luxembourg again. The Nazis were not prepared to allow Luxembourgers self-government, and gradually integrated Luxembourg into the Third Reich by informally attaching the country administratively to a neighbouring German province. Under the occupation, the capital city's streets all received new, German names, which was announced on 4 October 1940. The Avenue de la Liberté for example, a major road leading to the railway station, was renamed "Adolf-Hitlerstraße". On 26 March 1943, Nazi authorities expanded the city's boundaries by incorporating the communes of Strassen and Walferdange and parts of the commune of Hesperange. Luxembourg City was liberated on 10 September 1944, after which the pre-occupation city boundaries were restored. The city was under long-range bombardment by the German V-3 cannon in December 1944 and January 1945.

After the war, Luxembourg ended its neutrality, and became a founding member of several inter-governmental and supra-governmental institutions. In 1952, the city became the headquarters of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1967, the High Authority was merged with the commissions of the other European institutions; although Luxembourg City was no longer the seat of the ECSC, it hosted some part-sessions of the European Parliament until 1981. Luxembourg remains the seat of the European Parliament's secretariat, as well as the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors, and the European Investment Bank. Several departments of the European Commission are also based in Luxembourg. The Council of the EU meets in the city for the months of April, June and October annually.

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