Meissen is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 of approximately 30,000 about 25 km (15.5 mi) northwest of Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 on both banks 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...

 river in the Free State of 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....

, in eastern 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...

. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain

Meissen porcelain

Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain that was developed from 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger, continued his work and brought porcelain to the market...

, the Albrechtsburg

Albrechtsburg

The Albrechtsburg is a Late Gothic castle that dominates the town centre of Meissen in the German state of Saxony.-History:By 929 King Henry I of Germany had finally subdued the Slavic Glomacze tribe and built a fortress within their settlement area, situated on a rock high above the Elbe river...

 castle, the Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche. The Große Kreisstadt

Große Kreisstadt

Große Kreisstadt is a term in the German municipal law. In some German federal states the term is used as a special legal status for district-affiliated cities or towns with additional competences in comparison with other municipalities or towns of the district. The title is based on souvereign...

is the capital of the Meissen district.
Meissen is sometimes known as the "cradle of Saxony". The city grew out of the early Slavic

West Slavs

The West Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking West Slavic languages. They include Poles , Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Sorbs and the historical Polabians. The northern or Lechitic group includes, along with Polish, the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages...

 settlement of Mis(s)ni, named for the small river Mis(s)na today Meis(s)abach (see Miesbach/Musbach/Mosbach), inhabited by the Glomacze

Glomacze

The Glomacze, also Golomacze or Dolomici - were Polabian Slavs inhabiting areas in the middle Elbe valley. Other West Slavic tribes such as the Milceni settled east of them. About 850 the Bavarian Geographer located their settlement area east of the Sorbs...

 tribe (possibly slavic) and was founded as a German town

German town law

German town law or German municipal concerns concerns town privileges used by many cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages.- Town law in Germany :...

 by King Henry the Fowler in 929.