GOTHA, a town of Germany, in the Land of Thuringia, alternately with Coburg the former residence of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, on the Leine canal, 6 m. N. of the slope of the Thuringian forest, 17 m. W. from Erfurt, on the railway to Cassel. Pop. 47,848.
Gotha (in old chronicles called Gotegewe and later Gotaha) existed as a village in the time of Charlemagne. In 93o its lord, the abbot of Hersfeld, surrounded it with walls. It was a town as early as 1200, when it came into the possession of the landgraves of Thuringia. On the extinction of that line it fell to the electors of Saxony, and later to the Ernestine line of dukes. After the battle of Miihlberg in 1547 the castle of Grimmenstein was partly destroyed, but it was again restored in 1554. At the end of the i6th century it came into the possession of Ernest the Pious, founder of the line of the dukes of Gotha. In 1825 it was united to the dukedom of Coburg.
The old inner town is encircled by suburbs, and is dominated by the castle of Friedenstein, begun by Duke Ernest the Pious in 1643, lying on the Schlossberg, the site of the old fortress of Grimmen stein, at an elevation of i,1oo feet. The new museum, south of the castle, contains the picture gallery, cabinet of engravings, natural history museum, Chinese museum and a collection of Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman and German antiquities. The church of St. Margaret has a beautiful portal and a lofty tower (12th cent.), twice burnt down, and rebuilt in its present form in 165 2 ; the church of the Augustinian convent, has an altar-piece by the painter Simon Jacobs; and the old town-hall dates from the iith century. The schools include a gymnasium founded in 1524.
Gotha is most active commercially, making sausages, porcelain, tobacco, rubber, machinery, mechanical instruments, musical in struments, shoes, furniture and toys. There are also a number of nurseries and market gardens. The book trade is represented by about a dozen firms, including that of the great geographical house of Justus Perthes, founded in 1785. Gotha is also noted for its insurance societies.