The fairytale-ballet anime Princess Tutu is set in the fictional Kinkan Town, which is heavily based on N�rdlingen.
N�rdlingen was the town shown in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971, when in the final scenes the glass elevator is floating over a town.
Stone buildings in the town contain millions of tiny diamonds, all less than 0.2 millimeters across. The impact that caused the N�rdlinger Ries crater created an estimated 72000 tons of them when it impacted a local graphite deposit. Stone from this area was later quarried and used to build the stone buildings.
The local sports club, the TSV 1861 N�rdlingen, has a very successful basketball department with the men's and the women's team both in the Basketball Bundesliga. The clubs football team is traditionally the strongest side in northern Swabia. Its most successful former player is Gerd M�ller, who was born and raised in N�rdlingen. Its stadium was renamed in his honour in 2008
