In this paper, we consider a compressible fluid model of the Korteweg type on general domains in the N-dimensional Euclidean space for N≥2. The Korteweg-type model is employed to describe fluid capillarity effects or liquid–vapor two-phase flows with phase transition as a diffuse interface model. In the Korteweg-type model, the stress tensor is given by the sum of the standard viscous stress tensor and the so-called Korteweg stress tensor, including higher order derivatives of the fluid density. The local existence of strong solutions is proved in an Lp-in-time and Lq-in-space setting, p∈(1,∞) and q∈(N,∞), with additional regularity of the initial density on the basis of maximal regularity for the linearized system.