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Frankenmuth is a city in Saginaw County, Michigan, famous statewide as 'Michigan's Little Bavaria' for its German heritage and Bavarian-style Main Street.

Frankenmuth was settled in 1845 by conservative Lutheran immigrants from the Roßtal area of Franconia, Germany, who arrived that August after traveling from New York via canals and the Great Lakes.

The name Frankenmuth combines 'Franken,' for the settlers' home region of Franconia, with 'Mut,' the German word for courage — so Frankenmuth means 'courage of the Franconians.'

The settlers founded Frankenmuth as an exclusively German Lutheran community with a mission to local Native Americans; St. Lorenz Lutheran Church still holds monthly services in German, and German remains common on local signage.

Frankenmuth became a village in 1904 and was incorporated as a city on October 1, 1959.

Frankenmuth had a population of 4,987 at the 2020 census, living in 2,234 households.

Frankenmuth skews older than most Michigan cities: at the 2020 census its median age was 53.5 years, and about a third of residents were 65 or older.

Nearly half of Frankenmuth residents — 49.3% in the 2010 census — reported German ancestry, the largest single ancestry group in town.

Frankenmuth is home to Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland, which bills itself as the world's largest Christmas store; it sits on 27 acres of grounds and is open 361 days a year.

Facing each other across Main Street, Zehnder's — which bills itself as America's largest family restaurant — and the Bavarian Inn are both famous for their family-style chicken dinners, a tradition the Bavarian Inn traces to 1928.