<p>The medieval city of Leipzig was built at the confluence of the rivers Weiße Elster, Pleiße and Parthe. These rivers played a crucial role in the development of watermills through a network of millraces and weirs. Using the city of Leipzig as a case study, we have examined the landforms and land-use of the floodplain, the river economy, and the riverine landscape elements. We have developed and applied an adapted retrospective method in QGIS that combines historical maps of the seventeenth century with late-medieval written sources through toponyms. These field names indicate a gradual change from woodland pastures to open grasslands in the vicinity of the city. Notably, monasteries owned most of the present-day riparian forests in the Middle Ages. The analysis of the riverine landscape elements reveals an advanced system of anthropogenic alterations that had developed by the seventeenth century. The adapted retrospective approach offers a valuable framework for mapping late-medieval human-river interactions.</p>