About this place
Spread out beside the towering Mainz Cathedral, the Marktplatz has been the commercial and social heart of the city since around 975, when the great church first drew merchants to its doorstep. Today it remains a working market square, with stalls of flowers, cheese, and Rhine-Hessian wine gathering several mornings a week beneath colourful gabled houses. At its centre stands the Heunensäule, a monumental medieval column, while against the cathedral houses rises the Marktbrunnen, one of the oldest and most beautiful Renaissance fountains in Germany. Together they make the square a compact open-air museum of Mainz's Roman, ecclesiastical, and civic past.
Key facts
- 1526 year — The Renaissance Marktbrunnen fountain was gifted to the citizens by Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg
- 6.4 metres — The red sandstone Heunensäule column stands this tall and weighs around sixteen tons
- 975 year — The cathedral's construction turned this spot into a bustling trading place
📍 Markt 19.29, 55116, Mainz