HILDBURGHAUSEN (in old records Hiltpershusia and Villa Hilperti), the chief town of a circle in the duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, Germany, is situated in a wide and fruitful valley on the river Werra and on the Werra railway, 19 miles south-east of Meiningen by rail. It is the seat of a circle court, of a court of appeal, and of the jury court for the duchy. The streets are wide and regular, and the principal buildings are the former castle of the duchy, erected 1685-95, now used as barracks, with a park in which there is a monument to Queen Louise of Prussia; the old town-house, the Government buildings, the gymnasium erected in 1877, the normal seminary, and the lunatic asylum. A monument has been erected to those of the citizens who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The manufactures are very various, and include linen fabrics, cloth, papier-mâché, toys, buttons, optical instruments, agricultural machines, knives, mineral waters, condensed soups, and condensed milk. The population in 1875 was 5162.

Hildburghausen belonged in the 14th century to the counts of Henneberg, from whom it passed into the possession of the dukes of Saxony. In 1683 it became the capital of a principality, which in 1826 was united to Saxe-Meiningen.