Bautzen (Wendish Budissin), an important manufacturing town in Saxony, situated on a rising ground overlooking the river Spree, 35 miles W. of Görlitz by rail. It is the chief town of an administrative district of the same name, which has a population (1885) of 356,383, including 50,000 Wends, remnants of the old Slavic population of
Eastern Germany. The chief buildings are a former cathedral (1497), and the castle of Ortenburg, dating from 958, and a frequent residence of the kings of Bohemia. The leading industries are manufactures of woollens, fustian, linen, hosiery, leather, and gunpowder. Pop. (1871) 13,165; (1890) 21,516. Bautzen was first made a town under Otho I. It suffered greatly in the war with the Hussites, and still more during the Thirty Years' War. Here Napoleon, after an obstinate resistance, won a barren victory over Russians and Prussians, May 20-21, 1813.