NEISSE, a well-built town and fortress of the first rank in the district of Oppeln, Prussian Silesia, lies at the junction of the Neisse and the Biela, and consists of the town proper on the right bank of the former river and the Friedrichstadt on the left. Of its nine churches the most interesting is the parish church of St James (Jakobikirche), dating mainly from the 12th century, but finished in 1430. The chief secular buildings are the old episcopal residence, the new town-house, the old rathsthurm, 205 feet in height (1499), and the theatre. There are also several schools, convents, and hospitals. The manufactures are unimportant, but a considerable trade is carried on in agricultural products. In 1880 the town contained 20,507 inhabitants, of whom 15,825 were Roman Catholics. The garrison forms about a fourth of the population.

Neisse, one of the oldest towns in Silesia, is said to have been founded in the 10th century, and afterwards became the capital of a principality of its own name, which was incorporated with the bishopric of Breslau about the year 1200. Its first walls were erected in 1350, and enabled it to repel an attack of the Hussites in 1428. It was thrice besieged during the Thirty Years’ War. The end of the first Silesian war left Neisse in the hands of Frederick the Great, who laid the foundations of its modern fortifications. The town was taken by the French in 1807. In addition to its forts, ramparts, and bastions, Neisse can, at the will of the garrison, be protected by a system of inundation.