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Leipzig
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St Thomas' Church in the evening.
St Thomas' Church in the evening.
Coat of armsLocation
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Coat of arms of Leipzig
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Leipzig (Germany)

Administration
CountryGermany
StateSaxony
Admin. regionLeipzig
DistrictLeipzig
Basic statistics
Population506,578  
Please give "Stand" in YYYY-MM-DD format , e. g. 2005-12-31
Other information
Time zoneCET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate codeL
Postal codes04003-04357
Area codes0341
Websitewww.leipzig.de
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A map from Meyers Encyclopedia depicting the Battle of Leipzig on October 18 1813.
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Leipzig Old City
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Atrium of the "Academy of Visual Arts".
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"Porsche Diamond" The customer center building of Porsche Leipzig.
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MDR, one of Germany's public broadcasters.
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City-Hochhaus Leipzig.
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New Trade Fair.
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Inside Leipzig Hbf (Central Rail Station).
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''Template {{}} needs its first parameter as beg[in], mid[dle], or end. Leipzig (] (helpinfo); Sorbian/Lusatian: Lipsk from the Sorbian word for Tilia) is, with a population of over 506,000, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. It is situated at the confluence of the Rivers Pleiße, White Elster and Parthe.
Leipzig is well-known for its university and its trade fair. Germany's first labour party was founded in the city.

Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the linden trees (US; lime trees in UK) stand".[1]

History

First documented in 1015 and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165, Leipzig has fundamentally shaped the history of Saxony and of Germany. Leipzig has always been known as a place of commerce. The Leipzig Trade Fair, which began in the Middle Ages, is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. It became an event of international importance, especially as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member.

The foundation of the University of Leipzig in 1409 initiated the city's development into a centre of German law and the publishing industry, and towards being a location of the Reichsgericht (Supreme Court), and the German National Library (founded in 1912). The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646, and attended the University of Leipzig from 1661-1666. Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, at the St. Thomas Lutheran church, and Richard Wagner the composer was born in Leipzig in 1813. Later in the same year, the Leipzig region was the arena of the Battle of the Nations, which ended Napoleon's run of conquest in Europe, and led to his first exile on Elba. In 1913 the Völkerschlachtdenkmal monument celebrating the centenary of this event was completed.

The importance of the Trade Fair and the University in the creation of a vibrant urban life and city politics from the Reformation through the 19th century cannot be overestimated. Leipzig became a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements.

A terminal of the first German long distance railroad to Dresden (the capital of Saxony), in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railroad traffic, with a renowned station building, the largest terminal station by area in Europe.
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Leipzig around 1900.
Leipzig expanded rapidly towards one million inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived the war and post-war demolition. Nowadays these areas are unique in modern Germany.

The first German labour party, the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to the foundation on the new railway line.

On November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, Nazis destroyed Jewish synagogues and establishments all over Germany. A U.S. official in Leipzig described what he saw of the atrocities. "Having demolished dwellings and hurled most of the moveable effects to the streets," he wrote, "the insatiably sadistic perpetrators threw many of the trembling inmates into a small stream that flows through the zoological park, commanding horrified spectators to spit at them, defile them with mud and jeer at their plight." Many of the Jews were forced to wear cummerbunds inscribed with phrases from Mein Kampf.

The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II.

American troops of the 69th Infantry Division captured the city on April 20 1945, Adolf Hitler's 56th and last birthday. A few months later the U.S. ceded the city to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the pre-designated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

In 1989, after prayers for peace at the Nikolai Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German regime.

Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but did not make it to the short list.

Main sights

  • Thomaskirche (St Thomas' Church): Most famous as the place where Johann Sebastian Bach worked as a cantor and home to the renowned Thomaner choir
  • Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Battle of the Nations Monument): the largest war monument in Europe, built to commemorate the successful battle against Napoleonic troops
  • Gewandhaus: home to the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, it is the third building of that name
  • Altes Rathaus: the old city hall was built in 1556 and houses a museum of the city's history
  • Neues Rathaus: the city hall was built upon the remains of the Pleißenburg, a castle that was the site of the debate between Johann Eck and Martin Luther in 1519
  • City-Hochhaus Leipzig: built in 1972, it was once part of the university and is the city's tallest building
  • Auerbach's Keller: a young Goethe ate and drank here while studying in Leipzig; it is the venue of a scene from his Faust
  • Städtisches Kaufhaus (municipal department store): the world's first sample fair building and today home to offices, retail stores and restaurants (its name is misleading, as it is privately owned)
  • Bundesverwaltungsgericht: Germany's federal administrative court was the site of the Reichsgericht, the highest state court between 1888 and 1945
Among Leipzig's noteworthy institutions are the opera house and the Leipzig Zoo, which houses the world's largest facilities for primates. The Nikolaikirche (Church of St. Nikolai/Nicholas) was the starting point of peaceful Monday demonstrations for the reunification of Germany. Leipzig's international trade fair in the north of the city is home to the world's largest levitated glass hall. Leipzig is also known for its passageways through houses and buildings..

Education

Leipzig University, founded 1409, is one of Europe's oldest universities. Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg worked here as a physics professor (from 1927 to 1942), as did Nobel Prize laureates Gustav Ludwig Hertz (physics), Wilhelm Ostwald (chemistry) and Theodor Mommsen (Nobel Prize in literature). Other former staff of faculty include mineralogist Georg Agricola, writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, philosopher Ernst Bloch, eccentric founder of psychophysics Gustav Theodor Fechner, and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. Among the university's many noteworthy students were writers Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Erich Kästner, philosophers Gottfried Leibniz and Friedrich Nietzsche, political activist Karl Liebknecht, and composer Richard Wagner. Germany's chancellor since 2006, Angela Merkel, studied physics at Leipzig University. The university has about 30,000 students.

The University of Music and Theatre was established in 1843 as a music conservatory. One of its founders was renowned composer Felix Mendelssohn. A broad range of subjects can be studied, both artistic and teacher training, in all orchestral instruments, voice, interpretation, coaching, piano chamber music, orchestral conducting, choir conducting and musical composition. Musical styles include jazz, popular music, musicals, early music and church music. The drama departments teach acting and dramaturgy. Advanced students may, after a test, stand in for members of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 2006, approximately 900 students are enrolled at the school.

The "Academy of Visual Arts" (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) was established 1764. Its 530 students (as of 2006) are enrolled in courses in painting and graphics, book design/graphic design, photography and media art. The school also houses an Institute for Theory.

The "Leipzig University of Applied Sciences" (Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, HTWK) is with about 6200 students (as of 2007) the second biggest institution of higher education in Leipzig. It was founded in 1992, merging several older schools. As a university of applied sciences (German: Fachhochschule) it is slightly below the status of a university, with more emphasis on the practical part of the education. The HTWK offers many engineering courses, as well as courses of computer sciences, mathematics, business administration, library sciences, museum studies, and social work. It is mainly located in the south of the city.

The private Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL), or Leipzig Graduate School of Management, is the oldest business school in Germany.

Among the research institutes located in Leipzig three belong to the Max Planck Society (for Mathematics in the Sciences, Human Cognitive and Brain Science and Evolutionary Anthropology) and two are Fraunhofer Society institutes. Others are the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, part of the Helmholtz Association, and the Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research.

Economy

Companies in or around Leipzig include: DHL is in the process of transferring the bulk of its European air operations to Leipzig/Halle Airport.

Media

  • MDR, one of Germany's public broadcasters, has its headquarters and main television studios in the city. It provides programs to various TV and radio networks and has its own symphony orchestra, choir and a ballet.
  • Leipziger Volkszeitung (LVZ) is the city's only daily newspaper. Founded in 1894, it has published under several different forms of government. It was the first newspaper in the world that was published daily. The monthly magazine Kreuzer specializes on culture, festivities and the arts in Leipzig.
  • Once known for its large number of publishing houses, Leipzig had been called "Buch-Stadt" (book city). Few are left after the years of the German Democratic Republic, the most notable of them being branches of Brockhaus and Insel Verlag. Reclam, founded in 1828, was one of the large publishing houses to move away. The German Library (Deutsche Bücherei) in Leipzig is part of Germany's National Library.
  • On November 26, 1990, the Norwegian Black Metal band Mayhem recorded their oft-regarded as seminal live album Live in Leipzig.

Annual events

Sport

The German Football Association (DFB) was founded in Leipzig in 1900.

The city was the venue for the 2006 FIFA World Cup draw, and hosted four first-round matches and one match in the last 16th round in the football club FC Sachsen Leipzig's home stadium Zentralstadion.

Leipzig also hosted the Fencing World Cup in 2005 and hosts a number of international competitions in a variety of sports each year.

VfB Leipzig, now 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, won the first national football championship in 1903.

Transportation

Leipzig station is at a junction of important north-to-south and west-to-east railway lines. In the vicinity of the city are two airports: Leipzig/Halle Airport and Altenburg-Nobitz Airport.

Quotations

Mein Leipzig lob' ich mir! Es ist ein klein Paris und bildet seine Leute. (I praise my Leipzig! It is a small Paris and educates its people.) - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Faust

Twin cities

Leipzig is twinned with:

Notable residents

See also

References

1. ^ Hanswilhelm Haefs. Das 2. Handbuch des nutzlosen Wissens. ISBN 3831137544 (German)
2. ^ (1963) Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who. 

External links


country, state, and nation can have various meanings. Therefore, diverse lists of these entities are possible. Wikipedia offers the following lists:

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Anthem
"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
also called "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"
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Länder (singular Land). Since Land is the literal German word for "country", the term Bundesländer (federal states; singular Bundesland
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Freistaat Sachsen (de)
Swobodny stat Sakska (wen)  
Free State of Saxony
Flag Coat of arms

Details
Location

Coordinates
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)

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A Regierungsbezirk is a government region of Germany, a subdivision of certain federal states (Bundesländer). Regierungsbezirke are themselves further divided into districts (Kreise), either Landkreise
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Leipzig

''Map of Saxony highlighting the Regierungsbezirk of Leipzig
State| Saxony
Leipzig
4,385.9 km
1,072,123 (31 Dec. 2006)
Pop. density| 0 /km
www.rpl.sachsen.
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Germany

This article is part of the series:
Politics of Germany

  • Constitution
  • Federal Council (Bundesrat)
  • Federal Diet (Bundestag)
  • Federal Assembly
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  • Constitutional Court

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population is the collection of people or organisms of a particular species living in a given geographic area or mortality, and migration, though the field encompasses many dimensions of population change including the family (marriage and divorce), public health, work and the
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date in a calendar is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated.
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time zone is a region of the Earth that has adopted the same standard time, usually referred to as the local time. Most adjacent time zones are exactly one hour apart, and by convention compute their local time as an offset from UTC (see also Greenwich Mean Time).
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Central European Time (CET) is one of the names of the time zone that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in most European and some North African countries.

Its time offset is UTC+1. During daylight saving time CEST is used instead (UTC+2).
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Central European Summer Time (CEST) is one of the names of UTC+2 time zone, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in most European and some North African countries. During the winter, Central European Time (UTC+1) is used.
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UTC+1 is used in the following locations:
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  • Western European Summer Time*
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UTC+2 corresponds to the following time zones:
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German car number plates (Kfz-Kennzeichen) show the place where the car carrying them is registered. Whenever a person changes their main place of residence in Germany, or buys a new car, they are required to buy new number plates.
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Postal codes in Germany, Postleitzahl (plural Postleitzahlen, abbreviated to PLZ), consist of five digits, which indicate the wider area (first two digits), and the postal district (last three digits).

The present system was introduced on 1 July 1993.
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Area codes in Germany (German Vorwahl) have two to five digits, not counting the leading zero. The leading zero must be dialed when calling from within Germany and must be omitted when calling from abroad.
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A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN.
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geographic coordinate system enables every location on the earth to be specified by the three coordinates of a spherical coordinate system aligned with the spin axis of the Earth.
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Sorbian languages are classified under the West Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. They are the native languages of the Sorbs, a Slavic minority in eastern Germany. Historically the language has also been known as Wendish or Lusatian.
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Tilia
L.

Species

About 30; see text
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, in Asia (where the greatest species diversity is found), Europe and eastern North America;
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city is an urban settlement with a particularly important status which differentiates it from a town.

City is primarily used to designate an urban settlement with a large population. However, city may also indicate a special administrative, legal, or historical status.
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Länder (singular Land). Since Land is the literal German word for "country", the term Bundesländer (federal states; singular Bundesland
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Freistaat Sachsen (de)
Swobodny stat Sakska (wen)  
Free State of Saxony
Flag Coat of arms

Details
Location

Coordinates
Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)

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Anthem
"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
also called "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit"
..... Click the link for more information.
Origin near Ebersbrunn by Zwickau
Mouth Weiße Elster in Leipzig
Basin countries Germany
Length 90 km

The Pleiße is a right tributary of the Weiße Elster in Saxony, Germany.
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Origin Western Czech Republic
Mouth Saale
Basin countries Germany, Czech Republic
Length 257 km
Source elevation 724 m

The Weiße Elster (White Elster, in Czech: Bílı Halštrov
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University of Leipzig (German Universität Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony (former Kingdom of Saxony), Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe.
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The Leipzig Trade Fair (German: Leipziger Messe) was a major fair for trade across Mitteleuropa for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became
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Germany

This article is part of the series:
Politics of Germany

  • Constitution
  • Federal Council (Bundesrat)
  • Federal Diet (Bundestag)
  • Federal Assembly
    (Bundesversammlung)
  • Constitutional Court

..... Click the link for more information.


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