Water has repeatedly changed Bad Radkersburg's work and borders. The Mur brought merchants, served as a defensive line, became an international boundary and now links an Austrian spa town to Slovenian Gornja Radgona across a bridge. Thermal and mineral water later gave the town another economy. A walk here is most rewarding when the riverside, fortifications and bath are read together.
A town without a certain founder
The municipal history explicitly says that neither the settlement's founder nor its exact beginnings can be reconstructed. The name appears in a document in 1182, but a document first calls it a town in 1299. A planned late-thirteenth-century enlargement is probable, not an established founding event. The earlier presence of people in the Mur valley does not prove a Roman town. Trade in cattle, wine, timber, salt and iron helped Radkersburg grow; the river was a transport route as well as a potential threat.
In the sixteenth century Italian engineers helped replace older walls with bastioned defences. Their surviving lines and Renaissance buildings are best explored from the centre towards the Mur. The Museum im alten Zeughaus occupies an arsenal completed in 1588 and adds objects to the outdoor story. The border is a much later layer. After the First World War, the Treaty of Saint-Germain made the Mur a state boundary and divided the former town area. Fighting in 1945 devastated much of Radkersburg; the cross-river bridge reopened in 1969 as a shared Austrian-Yugoslav project. A regional cycling guide traces today's crossing into Gornja Radgona, making the border tangible without turning it into a quaint legend.
Health economy and arrival
The city's history identifies health tourism as its main economic pillar. Mineral water found during drilling in 1927 led to cures; Radkersburg gained the ‘Bad’ designation in 1975, and a thermal source later supported Parktherme. Services, accommodation and baths now sit alongside the historic centre. Statistics Austria records 3,207 residents in the municipality on 1 January 2026, not the number of spa guests. From Graz, ÖBB route 502 runs via Leibnitz and Spielfeld-Straß to Bad Radkersburg; check whether a connection or replacement bus applies on your date. From neighbouring Gornja Radgona, use the Mur bridge into the Austrian centre. Check museum and bath hours before travel. The riverbank gives a clearer account of this place than the spa brochure alone.