KREUZNACII, or CREUZNACH, chief town of a circle in the government district of Coblentz, Prussia, is situated on the Nahe, a tributary of the Rhine, about 40 miles south-east of Coblentz. It consists of the old town on the right bank of the river, the new town on the left, and the island Badeworth, all of which are connected by a fine stone bridge. There is an iron bridge between the island and the right bank. Kreuznach is the seat of a local court, and it has a gymnasium, a business-school, and a hospital. On the Badeworth is the kurhaus, built in 1872, with baths and gardens, and also the chief spring, the Elisabethquelle, impregnated with iodine and bromine, and prescribed for scrofulous and various other affections. The climate is mild, moderately damp, and on the whole equable. The chief industries of the town are marble-polishing and the manufacture of leather and tobacco, and various knickknacks in agate. Vines are grown on the neighbouring hills. The population in 1875 was 13,772.

The earliest mention of the springs of Kreuznach occurs in 1478 ; but it was only in the early half of the 19th century that Dr Prieger (whose marblestatue adorns the town)brought them into prominence. Now the annual number of visitors is about seven thousand. In the 9th century Kreuzberg was known as Cruciniacum. In 1065 it was presented by Henry IV. to the bishop of Spires, from whom it passed (after becoming a town in the early part of the 13th century) to the counts of Sponheim and the Palatinate. In 1814 it became Prussian. Daring the 17th century Kreuznach was snore than once taken and plundered ; and in 1689 the French reduced the strong castle of Kauzenberg to the ruin which still surmounts the Schlossberg to the north-west of the town.