In what city was Levi Strauss born?

Levi Strauss was born in Buttenheim, a village in Bavaria.

He was born there on February 26, 1829, as Löb Strauß, into a Jewish family. Buttenheim was in the Franconian region of the Kingdom of Bavaria, in what was then the German Confederation. The village is now in the German state of Bavaria.

Strauss spent his early years in Buttenheim before emigrating to the United States in 1847 with his mother Rebecca and two sisters. They joined his brothers in New York, where the family was involved in the wholesale dry-goods business. Strauss later moved west and established the San Francisco company that became Levi Strauss & Co.

The city wording can cause confusion because Buttenheim is a small municipality rather than a major city. Vienna, Frankfurt, and Munich are better-known German-speaking cities, but none is his birthplace. His childhood home in Buttenheim has since become the Levi Strauss Museum, preserving the connection between the Bavarian village and the global clothing brand.