Fredericksburg, Texas map

Fredericksburg sits in the middle of the Hill Country on the Edwards Plateau, 78 road miles west of Austin on US-290 and about 70 miles north of San Antonio by US-87 and I-10. Kerrville is 24 miles southwest over the divide on SH-16. The town stands in the valley of Baron's Creek, which drains east into the Pedernales River; the granite country of Llano County begins about fifteen miles north, and the change from limestone hills to pink granite outcrops is abrupt.

Gillespie County covers 1,061 square miles, had 26,725 people in 2020, and Fredericksburg is its only incorporated city. It was organized in 1848 and named for Robert Addison Gillespie, a Texas Ranger killed in the Mexican–American War. Blanco County is east, Kendall southeast, Kerr southwest, and Kimble and Mason northwest.

Marktplatz, the market square in the middle of Main Street, holds the Vereins Kirche — an eight-sided building that served the first settlers as church, school and meeting hall. The original was pulled down in 1897; the octagonal building standing today is a reconstruction put up in the 1930s and it now houses local history exhibits. Behind Main Street, the older blocks still carry Sunday houses, the one-room-and-loft cottages farm families kept in town for weekend trips to church and market.

Fredericksburg was the birthplace of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and the National Museum of the Pacific War occupies his grandfather's steamboat-shaped Nimitz Hotel and several adjoining blocks. It is the only museum in the country devoted entirely to the Pacific theatre of the Second World War, and includes an outdoor combat exhibit and a Japanese garden of peace.

Seventeen miles north of town on RM-965, Enchanted Rock rises as a bare granite dome above the surrounding scrub — a batholith exposed by erosion, and the busiest state natural area in the Hill Country. The park limits daily entry, so summer weekends fill early.

East of Fredericksburg, US-290 toward Stonewall and Johnson City has become the main wine road of the Texas Hill Country, with tasting rooms strung along the highway for twenty miles. The same stretch carries the peach orchards that Gillespie County is known for; the roadside stands open in May and run into August. Fifteen miles east at Stonewall, the LBJ Ranch on the Pedernales is preserved as Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, with the adjoining state park across the river. Ten miles southeast, off RM-1376, Luckenbach is a dance hall, a post office and not much else.