Rottenburg am Neckar (; until 10 July 1964 only Rottenburg; Swabian: Raodaburg) is a medium-sized town in the administrative district (Landkreis) of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It lies about 50 kilometres (31 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Stuttgart and about 12 km (7 mi) southwest of the district town Tübingen. Rottenburg is the second-largest town of the district after Tübingen and makes up a secondary centre for the surrounding community. Since 1 May 1972, Rottenburg am Neckar has been a district town (Große Kreisstadt). Rottenburg agreed to an administrative collective with the municipalities of Hirrlingen, Neustetten and Starzach. Rottenburg is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, being the official centre of the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. Moreover, it has a college of church music and a university of applied sciences (German Fachhochschule), specialising in forestry. Geography Rottenburg is divided into a town core and seventeen (suburban) districts. Suburban districts of Rottenburg: Bad Niedernau, Baisingen, Bieringen, Dettingen, Eckenweiler, Ergenzingen, Frommenhausen, Hailfingen, Hemmendorf, Kiebingen, Obernau, Oberndorf, Schwalldorf, Seebronn, Weiler, Wendelsheim and Wurmlingen. History Rottenburg was founded as a Roman town, Sumelocenna, probably around the year AD98, and was one of the most important Roman towns in the southwest of Germany. It had a line of walls built to defend it from the attacks of the Alamanni, who nevertheless destroyed it in 259-260. The name Rottenburg is thought to derive from a Germanic root that is also present in the English word "rotten", in an older meaning of "destroyed". According to this hypothesis, the town would have received its name when, in the early Middle Ages, Alemannic people founded their settlement in the vicinity of the ruins of Roman Sumelocenna. An alternative etymology of Rottenburg as "red borough" is also considered possible, however. In the Middle Ages, the town was first governed by the counts of Hohenberg, who, however, were forced to sell it to the Habsburg dynasty in 1381. Rottenburg remained a part of Further Austria until 1805, when it was assigned to Württemberg in the Peace of Pressburg. Rottenburg became the seat of a Catholic bishop as late as 1821–1828, when, after the secularisation and the Napoleonic Wars, a reorganisation of Catholic life in southwest Germany had become necessary. It was then decided not to choose the more important nearby places of Stuttgart or Tübingen as a diocesan town, as these were firmly Protestant. Rottenburg is known among Anabaptists as