Dessau-Roßlau is a kreisfreie Stadt (urban district) in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Elbe and Mulde. The town was formed by merger of the towns of Dessau and Roßlau as part of the 2007 regional bounadry reform of Saxony-Anhalt (Kreisreform Sachsen-Anhalt). The reform involved a reduction in the number of rural districts in Sachsen-Anhalt from 21 to 11, in anticipation of a continued population decline.
Dessau-Roßlau is the third largest town of Saxony-Anhalt by population, after Magdeburg and Halle. Its area is 245.0 km2.
Dessau is the largest population centre within Dessau-Roßlau, with approximately 79,000 inhabitants (2021). Most of the town is located on the left bank of the river Mulde, south of its confluence with the river Elbe. Dessau was first mentioned in 1213, and became the capital of a small state (Anhalt-Dessau) in the 14th century. Between 1863 and 1918, it was the capital of Anhalt. Since the second half of the 19th century, Dessau has been an industrial town. With the famous art and architecture school Bauhaus, located in Dessau between 1925 and 1932, and the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, the town features two UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The town could be referred to as the one of the birthplaces of the "jet age" because the Junkers factory that designed the Jumo 004 jet engine for the German Me 262 jet fighter (operational from mid-1944) was designed there. As the western shore of the Elbe-Mulde rivers was the stopping point for U.S. troops in World War II, the capture of the town allowed the U.S. Army to evacuate Junkers empoyees to the west before Russia occupied the area on 1 July 1945. Several engineers of the jet engine development team at Junkers ended up at the Lycoming engine plant in Stratford, Conn., building gas turbine engines for the U.S. Army from 1952 on.
