Axien is a village and a former municipality in the Wittenberg

Wittenberg (district)

Wittenberg is a district in the east of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Neighboring districts are Anhalt-Bitterfeld, the district-free city of Dessau-Roßlau, the districts of Potsdam-Mittelmark, Teltow-Fläming and Elbe-Elster in Brandenburg, and the district of Nordsachsen in the Free State of Saxony.-...

 district in Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Since 1 January 2011, it is part of the town Annaburg

Annaburg

Annaburg is a small town in Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was the seat of the former Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Annaburg-Prettin.- Constituent communities :Annaburg has two centres, one also called Annaburg, and the other Purzien....

.

Geography and transport

The community lies about 35 km southeast of Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

 and about 20 km north of Torgau

Torgau

Torgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...

 in the lowlands on the east bank of the Elbe

Elbe

The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

 on an old, now dry, arm of that river. West of the community runs Federal Highway (Bundesstraße) B 182, and to the north is the B 187. It lies on the "Mid-Germany Church Road". In the south, the community borders on Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

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History

The village of Axien is first documented in the 10th century. The village, however, must have been older, a castle by the name of Wazgrini in Axien having been mentioned in 865. It was used as a fortified bridgehead

Bridgehead

A bridgehead is a High Middle Ages military term, which antedating the invention of cannons was in the original meaning expressly a referent term to the military fortification that protects the end of a bridge...

 at a ford

Ford (crossing)

A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading or in a vehicle. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, which is an artificial bridge that allows crossing a river or stream when water is low.The names of many towns...

on the Elbe.

Sightseeing

• Well known is the brick church with ceiling paintings from the 12th century.
• Atonement Cross in Kähnitzsch