Feldkirch, the old district capital in Vorarlberg, the most westerly town in Austria, lies some 35km/22mi south of Bregenz, where the Ill carves its way through a rocky gorge from the Wallgau into the Rhine valley. Divided into the districts of Tisis, Tosters and Nofels, it adjoins the Principality of Liechtenstein. Feldkirch is an international
rail and road junction on the route via the Arlberg to Innsbruck and to the tourist centers near the Arlberg and in the Grosses Walsertal. Now that the Bregenz-Arlberg-Innsbruck motorway bypasses Feldkirch through the Arlberg Tunnel the town is less disturbed by traffic. The Feldkirch region was inhabited during the Bronze Age. About 1190 Count Hugo I of Montfort built the Schattenburg (see below) and founded a settlement at its foot. In 1376 Count Rudolf of Montfort granted the town its "Great Letter of Freedom" and one year later sold it to the Habsburgs. Since then, apart from the period 1806-14 when the whole of Vorarlberg formed part of the Kingdom of Bavaria, Feldkirch has been Austrian. In 1884 the Arlberg Railway was opened; the line from Bregenz to Bludenz had been in operation since 1872. Feldkirch was the birthplace of the doctor and geographer Hieronymus Münzer (1437-1508), of the painter Wolf Huber (after 1480-1539), an important member of the "Danube School", and of the humanist, mathematician and astronomer Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-76), who disseminated the new map of the world drawn up by his teacher Copernicus.
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