which country started the tradition of putting up a christmas tree?

Germany is most commonly credited as the country that started the tradition of putting up the modern Christmas tree, with decorated indoor evergreens documented among German Protestants in the 16th century.

Quick Scoop

• The modern Christmas tree tradition is generally traced to German-speaking regions in Central Europe during the Renaissance, especially what is now Germany.

• Written records show Christmas trees used by German Lutherans in the 1500s, including a tree in Strasbourg Cathedral in 1539, decorated and displayed for Christmas.

• From Germany, the custom spread through Europe and later to North America via German immigrants, eventually becoming a widely adopted Christmas symbol worldwide.

A bit of nuance

• Some Baltic cities such as Tallinn (Estonia) and Riga (Latvia) claim earlier “Christmas tree–like” practices in the 15th–16th centuries, involving merchant guilds dancing around and burning decorated trees in town squares.

• Historians, however, typically distinguish these public guild rituals from the recognizable family Christmas tree tradition that developed most clearly in German households.

In one line

If you are answering in a quiz or conversation, the best historically grounded response is: Germany started the tradition of the Christmas tree as it is known today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.