Freiberg is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany. It is a so-called Große Kreisstadt (large county town) and the administrative centre of Mittelsachsen district. Its historic town centre has been placed under heritage conservation and is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Ore Mountain Mining Region, due to its exceptional testimony to the development of mining techniques across many centuries. Until 1969, the town was dominated for around 800 years by the mining and smelting industries. In recent decades it has restructured into a high technology site in the fields of semiconductor manufacture and solar technology, part of Silicon Saxony. It is home of the oldest university of mining and metallurgy in the world – the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. Geography Location The town lies on the northern declivity of the Ore Mountains, with the majority of the borough west of the Eastern or Freiberger Mulde river. Parts of the town are nestled in the valleys of Münzbach and Goldbach streams. Its centre has an altitude of about (at the railway station). Its lowest point is on Münzbach on the town boundary at ; its highest point is on an old mining tip at . Freiberg lies within a region of old forest clearances, subsequently used by the mining industry which left its mark on the landscape. The town is surrounded to the north, southeast and southwest by woods, and in the other directions by fields and meadows. Since the beginning of the 21st century an urbanised area has gradually developed which is formed by the towns of Nossen, Roßwein, Großschirma, Freiberg and Brand-Erbisdorf. It has currently about 75,000 inhabitants. Freiberg is located about west-southwest of Dresden, about 31 kilometres east-northeast of Chemnitz, about southeast of Leipzig, and about south of Berlin and about northwest of Prague. Freiberg lies on a boundary between two variants of the Upper Saxon dialect: the Southeast Meissen dialect (Südostmeißnisch) to the east and the South Meissen dialect (Südmeißnisch) to the west of the town, both belonging to the five Meissen dialects, as well as just north of the border of the dialect region of East Erzgebirgisch. Expansion of the town The nucleus of the town, the former forest village of Christiansdorf lies in the valley of the Münzbach stream. The unwalled town centre grew up on its two slopes and on the ridge to