The original 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was filmed primarily in and around Munich, Germany, with a few additional locations in Bavaria and Switzerland.

Main filming locations

  • Primary city: Most of the movie was shot in Munich, in what was then West Germany.
  • Studios: Interior sets for the chocolate factory (Chocolate Room, Fizzy Lifting Drinks, etc.) were built and filmed at Bavaria Studios in Geiselgasteig, near Munich.
  • Factory exterior: The outside of Willy Wonka’s factory is actually the SWM Stadtwerke München (a municipal gasworks/utility complex) in Munich.

Specific spots you see on screen

  • Charlie’s neighborhood: Streets like Quellenstraße and Lilienstraße in Munich were used for Charlie’s house area and Bill’s candy shop.
  • School scenes: Charlie’s school was filmed at a location in Munich associated with St. Sylvester parish on Biedersteiner Straße.
  • Town at the end: The aerial shots when the Great Glass Wonkavator flies over the town feature Nördlingen, a walled medieval town in Bavaria.

Opening titles and extra locations

  • Chocolate factory in credits: The real Toblerone factory in Bern, Switzerland, appears during the opening title sequence showing chocolate production.
  • Filming period: Production ran from late August to November 1970, mainly across these German and Swiss locations.

TL;DR: When people ask “where was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory filmed” , the answer is: mostly Munich and other parts of Bavaria in Germany, plus the Toblerone chocolate factory in Bern, Switzerland.

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