| Leipzig | |
| View over Augustusplatz | |
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Leipzig
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Location of the town of Leipzig within Saxony
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| Coordinates | |
| Administration | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Saxony |
| Admin. region | Leipzig |
| District | Urban district |
| Lord Mayor | Burkhard Jung (SPD) |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 297.60 km2 (114.90 sq mi) |
| Population | 522,883 (31 December 2010)[1] |
| - Density | 1,757 /km2 (4,551 /sq mi) |
| - Urban | 996,100 |
| - Metro | 3,500,000 |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Licence plate | L |
| Postal codes | 04001-04357 |
| Area code | 0341 |
| Website | www.leipzig.de |
Leipzig (German pronunciation: [ˈlaɪptsɪç] ( listen) is, along with Dresden, one of the two largest cities in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. Both have a population of about 525,000.[2] Leipzig is situated about a hundred miles south of Berlin at the confluence of the Weisse Elster, Pleisse and Parthe rivers at the southerly end of the North German Plain.
Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing.[3] After World War II, Leipzig became a major urban centre within the Communist German Democratic Republic but its cultural and economic importance declined.[3]
Leipzig later played a significant role in instigating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, through events which took place in and around St. Nicholas Church. Since the reunification of Germany, Leipzig has undergone significant change with the restoration of some historical buildings, the demolition of others, and the development of a modern transport infrastructure. Leipzig has many institutions and opportunities for culture and recreation including a football stadium which has hosted some international matches, an opera house and a zoo.
In 2010, Leipzig was ranked 68th in the world as a livable city, by consulting firm Mercer in their quality of life survey. Also in 2010, Leipzig was included in the top 10 of cities to visit by the New York Times.
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Leipzig is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the linden trees (British English: lime trees; U.S. English: basswood trees) stand".[4] An older spelling of the name in English is Leipsic.
Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto the Rich. Leipzig has fundamentally shaped the history of Saxony and of Germany and has always been known as a place of commerce. The Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, became an event of international importance and is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world.
There are records of commercial fishing operations on the river Pleisse in Leipzig dating back to 1305, when the Margrave Dietrich the Younger granted the fishing rights to the church and convent of St. Thomas.[5]
There were a number of monasteries in and around the town, including a Benedectine monastery after which the Barfussgässchen (Barefoot Alley) is named and a monastery of Irish monks near the present day Ranstädter Steinweg (old Via Regia).
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 (High 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 from 1661 to 1666.
On 24 December 1701, an oil-fuelled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a specific schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns.
The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and an allied coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I and ended Napoleon's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba. In 1913, the Monument to the Battle of the Nations monument celebrating the centenary of this event was completed.
A terminus of the first German long distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Central Station the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The train station has two grand entrance halls, traditionally the eastern one for the Elector of Saxony and the western one for the Emperor of Germany.
Leipzig became a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. 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. Leipzig expanded rapidly towards one million inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition.
With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Daily production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn.[6]
The city's mayor from 1930 to 1937, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a noted opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue was deliberately destroyed.
Several thousand forced labourers were stationed in Leipzig during World War II.
The city was also heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II. Unlike its neighbouring city of Dresden this was largely conventional bombing, with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant pattern of loss was a patchwork, rather than wholesale loss of its centre, but was nevertheless very extensive.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Leipzig in late April 1945. The US 2nd Infantry Division and US 69th Infantry Division fought into the city on 18 April and completed its capture after fierce urban combat, in which fighting was often house-to-house and block-to-block, on 19 April 1945.[7]
The U.S. turned over 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 the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. At this time, trade fairs were held at a site in the south of the city, near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations.
In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas 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.[8][9]
Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but was unsuccessful.
Leipzig lies at the confluence of the rivers Weisse Elster, Pleisse and Parthe, in the Leipzig Lowland, on the most southerly part of the North German Plain, which is the part North European Plain in Germany. The site is characterised by swampy areas such as the Leipzig Riverside Forest, though there are also some limestone areas to the north of the city. The landscape is mostly flat though there is also some evidence of moraine and drumlins.
Although there are some forest parks within the city limits, the area surrounding Leipzig is relatively unforested. During the 20th Century, there were a several open-cast mines in the region, many of which are being converted to use as lakes.
Leipzig is also situated at the intersection of the ancient roads known as the Via Regia (King's highway), which traversed Germanic lands in an east-west direction, and Via Imperii (Imperial Highway), a north-south road.
Leipzig was a walled city in the Middle Ages and the current "ring" road around the city centre corresponds to the old city walls.
Leipzig is divided administratively since 1992 into ten urban districts, which contain 63 subdistricts. Some of these correspond to outlying villages which were taken over by Leipzig.
| District | Pop. | Area km² |
Pop. per km² |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centre | 49,562 | 13,88 | 3,570 |
| North east | 41,186 | 26.29 | 1.566 |
| East | 69,666 | 40.74 | 1,710 |
| Southeast | 51,139 | 34.65 | 1,476 |
| South | 57,434 | 16.92 | 3,394 |
| Southwest | 45,886 | 46.67 | 983 |
| West | 51,276 | 14.69 | 3,491 |
| Old West | 46,009 | 26.09 | 1,764 |
| Northwest | 28,036 | 39.09 | 717 |
| North | 57,559 | 38.35 | 1,501 |
| Delitzsch | Jesewitz | ||
| Schkeuditz | Rackwitz | Taucha | |
| Borsdorf | Brandis | ||
| Markranstädt | Markkleeberg | Naunhof | |
| Kitzen | Zwenkau | Großpösna | |
Leipzig has a continental climate with summer temperatures sometimes over 30 Celsius (on 10 days of 2010) and very frequently below 0 in winter (on 62 days of 2010).[12] As in much of Germany, snow will regularly stay on the ground for a number of weeks, or even months, in the winter.
The hottest day on record was the 9th August, 1992 with a high of 38.8 °C, the coldest was the 14th January, 1987 with −24.1 °C.[13]
The population of Leipzig is approximately half a million with about 11% unemployment. Before German reunification it was over 700,000. Many people of working age took the opportunity to move west to seek work and this was a contributory factor to falling birth rates. However the birth rate for 2010 was 5414, the highest since reunification.[14] There were 5788 deaths in Leipzig in 2010, but the population increased by 4000 due to inward migration.[12] The average age of the population is 44.
The percentage of people with migration background or those of non-German origin/ethnicity is quite low compared to other German cities; the number of foreign inhabitants has in fact fallen from 28,177 in 2008 to 24,881 in 2010.[12] As of 2011, only about 10% of the population was of 1st or 2nd generation immigrant origin compared to the German overall average of 20%.
Number of minorities (1st and 2nd generation) in Leipzig by country of origin per 31 December 2010[15]
| Rank | Ancestry | Number |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Russia | 5,600 |
| 2 | Ukraine | 3,100 |
| 3 | Vietnam | 3,000 |
| 4 | Kazakhstan | 2,100 |
| 5 | Poland | 2,000 |
| 6 | Turkey | 1,600 |
| 7 | Iraq | 1,600 |
| 8 | China | 1,100 |
| Percentage of the population with migration background | |
|---|---|
| Germans (without any migrant background) | 90 % |
| Germans of foreign origin/Foreigners | 10 % |
| former Soviet background (mostly Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine etc.) | 2 % |
| Muslim/Middle Eastern background (Turkey, Arab League, Iran) | 2 % |
| Asian background (mostly Vietnam, China etc.) | 1,5% |
| others (u. a. Poles, Yugoslavians, Romanians, Afro-Germans, Indians etc.) | 4,5 % |
Leipzig has many buildings representative of Gründerzeit architecture and also a lot of Plattenbau architecture from the time of the DDR regime. The building of the University Church which was destroyed by the Communists in 1968 is currently being rebuilt as a secular building. The city also has numerous parks and forested areas and a zoo containing the biggest house in the world for primates.
Among Leipzig's noteworthy institutions are the opera house and the Leipzig Zoological Garden, the latter of which houses the world's largest facilities for primates. Leipzig's international trade fair centre 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.
see also Category:Music from Leipzig
Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750, conducting the St. Thomas Church Choir, at the St. Thomas Church, the St. Nicholas Church and the Paulinerkirche, the university church of Leipzig (destroyed in 1968). The composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813, in the Brühl. Robert Schumann was also active in Leipzig music, having been invited by Felix Mendelssohn when the latter established Germany's first musical conservatoire in the city in 1843. Gustav Mahler was second conductor (working under Artur Nikisch) at the Leipzig Theater from June 1886 until May 1888, and achieved his first great recognition while there by completing and publishing Carl Maria von Weber's opera Die Drei Pintos, and Mahler also completed his own 1st Symphony while living there.
This conservatoire is today the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig[16] 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.
The Bach-Archiv for documentation and research of life and work of Bach and also of the Bach family was founded in Leipzig in 1950 by Werner Neumann. The Bach-Archiv organizes the prestigious International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, initiated in 1950 as part of a music festival marking the bicentennial of Bach's death. The competition is now held every two years in three changing categories. The Bach-Archiv also organizes performances, especially the international festival Bachfest Leipzig (de) and runs the Bach-Museum.
The city's musical tradition is also reflected in the worldwide fame of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Thomas Church Choir. For over 60 years Leipzig has been offering the oldest "school concert[17] program for children in Germany. With over 140 concerts every year in venues such as the Gewandhaus and over 40,000 children attending, young adults are educated and inspired by music.
As for contemporary music, Leipzig is known for its independent music scene and subcultural events. Leipzig has for 20 years been home to the world's largest Gothic festival, the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen (WGT), where thousands of electro fans from across Europe gather in the early summer. Leipzig Pop Up[18] is an annual music trade fair for the independent music scene as well as a music festival taking place on Pentecost weekend. Its most famous indie-labels are Moon Harbour Recordings (house) and Kann Records (House/Techno/Psychedelic). Several venues offer live music on a daily basis.[19] is one of the oldest student clubs in Europe with concerts in various styles. For over 15 years "Tonelli's"[20] has been offering free weekly concerts every day of the week, though door charges may apply Saturdays.
Bill and Tom Kaulitz, members of the band Tokio Hotel, were born in Leipzig in 1989, as was Till Lindemann of Rammstein in 1963.
Norwegian black metal band Mayhem recorded their 1993 live album at the Eiskeller club on November 26, 1990. The cover photo for Beirut's 2005 album Gulag Orkestar was, according to the sleeve notes, stolen from a Leipzig library by Zach Condon.
The city's contemporary arts highlight is the Neo Rauch retrospective opening in April 2010 at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. This is a show devoted to the father of the New Leipzig School[21][22] of artists. According to The New York Times,[23] this scene "has been the toast of the contemporary art world" in the past decade. Further there are eleven galleries in the so-called Spinnerei,[24] a former cotton mill that attracts all kinds of independent artists. The New York Times features Leipzig in the Top 10 of its "31 Places to Go" article in 2010.[25]
The building complex of the Grassi Museum contains three more of Leipzig's major collections:[26] the Ethnography Museum, Applied Arts Museum, and Musical Instrument Museum (the last of which is run by the University of Leipzig). The university also runs the Museum of Antiquities.[27]
More than 300 sport clubs in the city represent 78 different disciplines. Over 400 sport facilities are available to citizens and club members.[34]
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 round of 16 in the Central stadium. Leipzig also hosted the Fencing World Cup in 2005 and hosts a number of international competitions in a variety of sports each year.
Since the beginning of the 20th century Ice hockey gained popularity and several local clubs established departments dedicated to that sport.[35] Today the Blue Lions Leipzig is the most famous Ice hockey club in town.
VfB Leipzig, now 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, won the first national football championship in 1903.
From 1950 to 1990 Leipzig was host of the Deutsche Hochschule für Körperkultur (DHfK) (German highschool for physical culture), the national sport university of the GDR.
Handball-Club Leipzig is one of the most successful women's handball clubs in Germany, winning 20 domestic championships since 1956 and 3 Champions League titles.
Leipzig made a bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. The bid did not make the shortlist after the International Olympic Committee pared the bids down to 5, and the competition was eventually won by London on 6 July 2005.
Markkleeberg Lake (Markkleeberger See) is a new lake next to Markkleeberg, a suburb on the south side of Leipzig. A former open-pit coal mine, it was flooded in 1999 with groundwater and developed in 2006 as a tourist area. On its southeastern shore is Germany's only pump-powered artificial whitewater slalom course, Markkleeberg Canoe Park (Kanupark Markkleeberg), a venue which rivals the Eiskanal in Augsburg for training and international canoe/kayak competition.
In June 2009 Red Bull entered the local football market after being denied the right to buy into FC Sachsen Leipzig in 2006. The newly founded RB Leipzig is now attempting to come up through the ranks of German football to bring Bundesliga football back to the region.[36]
Two Leipzig based teams are members of the Unihockey-Bundesliga, the German Premiere Floorball league. The MFBC Löwen Leipzig were runner-up in 2009, the SC DHFK Leipzig in 2008.
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, mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, political activist Karl Liebknecht, and composer Richard Wagner. Germany's chancellor since 2006, Angela Merkel, studied physics at Leipzig University.[37] The university has about 30,000 students.
A part of Leipzig University is the German Institute for Literature which was founded in 1955 under the name "Johannes R. Becher-Institut". A lot of noted writers have graduated from this school, including Heinz Czechowski, Kurt Drawert, Adolf Endler, Ralph Giordano, Kerstin Hensel, Sarah and Rainer Kirsch, Angela Krauß, Erich Loest, Fred Wander. After its closure in 1990 the institute was refounded in 1995 with new teachers.
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 University of Music and Theatre offers a broad range of subjects ranging from training in orchestral instruments, voice, interpretation, coaching, piano chamber music, orchestral conducting, choir conducting and musical composition to acting and dramaturgy.
The Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK)[38] has approximately 6200 students (as of 2007) and is (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 status is slightly below that of a university, with more emphasis on the practical part of the education. The HTWK offers many engineering courses, as well as courses in computer science, mathematics, business administration, librarianship, museum studies and social work. It is mainly located in the south of the city.
The private Leipzig Graduate School of Management, (in German Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL)), is the oldest business school in Germany.
Among the research institutes located in Leipzig, three belong to the Max Planck Society. These are the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Two more are Fraunhofer Society institutes. Others are the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, and the Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research.
Companies in or around Leipzig include:
Many bars, restaurants and stores found in the city centre are patronised by German and foreign tourists. The Leipzig Central Station itself is the location of one of the largest shopping centres.[39]
Some of the largest employers in the area (outside of manufacturing) include the various schools and universities in and around the Leipzig/Halle region. The University of Leipzig attracts millions of euros of investment yearly and is in the middle of a massive construction and refurbishment to celebrate its 600th anniversary.
DHL is in the process of transferring the bulk of its European air operations from Brussels Airport to Leipzig/Halle Airport. Amazon.com has a major distribution center, also near the airport.
The city also houses the European Energy Exchange which is the leading energy exchange in Central Europe.
Kirow Ardelt AG, the world market leader in railroad cranes, is based in Leipzig.
Future Electronics – a world leader in electronic component distribution has relocated its EMEA Distribution Centre to Leipzig.
Originally founded at the crossing of Via Regia and Via Imperii, Leipzig has been a major interchange of inter-European traffic and commerce since medieval times. After the Reunification of Germany, immense efforts to restore and expand the traffic network have been undertaken and left the city area with an excellent infrastructure.
Since 1936, Leipzig has been connected to the A 9 and A 14 autobahns via the Schkeuditzer Kreuz interchange and several exits. The A 38 completes the autobahn beltway around Leipzig and was completed in August 2006.
Like most German cities, Leipzig has a traffic layout designed to be bicycle-friendly. There is an extensive cycle network. In most of the one-way central streets, cyclists are explicitly allowed to cycle both ways. A few cycle paths have been built or declared since 1990.
Leipzig Central Station, opened in 1915, is at a junction of important north-to-south and west-to-east railway lines. The ICE train between Berlin and Munich stops in Leipzig and it takes approximately 1 hour from Berlin Central Station and 6 hours from Munich Central Station.[41]
Leipzig also has an extensive local public transport network. The city's tram and bus network is operated by the Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe. Leipzig's tram network, at a length of 209 km (about 140 miles) is one of the longest of any German city.[42]
An underground railway line called the "city tunnel" is presently under construction and this will link the train station to the city centre at a cost in excess of 500 million euro.
Leipzig/Halle Airport is the main airport in the vicinity of the city. Leipzig/Halle Airport offers a number of seasonal vacation charter flights as well as regular scheduled service. The former military airport near Altenburg, Thuringia called Leipzig-Altenburg Airport about a half-hour drive from Leipzig was previously (until 2010) served by Ryanair.
In the first half of the 20th Century the construction of the Elster-Saale canal s, White Elster and Saale was started in Leipzig in order to connect to the network of waterways. The outbreak of the Second World War stopped most of the work, though some may have continued through the use of forced labor. The Lindenauer port was almost completed but not yet connected to the Elster-Saale and Karl-Heine canal respectively. The Leipzig rivers (White Elster, New Luppe Pleisse and Parthe) in the city have largely artificial river beds and are supplemented by some channels. These waterways are suitable only for small leisure boat traffic.
Through the renovation and reconstruction of existing mill races and watercourses in the south of the city and flooded disused open cast mines the city's navigable water network is being expanded. The city commissioned planning for a link between Karl Heine Canal and the disused Lindenauer port in 2008. Still more work was still scheduled to complete the Elster-Saale canal. Such a move would allow sport boats to reach the Elbe from Leipzig. The intended completion date was, however, postponed because of unacceptable cost-benefit ratio.
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.) - Frosch, a university student in Goethe's Faust, Part One
Ich komme nach Leipzig, an den Ort, wo man die ganze Welt im Kleinen sehen kann. (I'm coming to Leipzig, to the place where one can see the whole world in miniature.) – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Extra Lipsiam vivere est miserrime vivere. (To live outside Leipzig is to live miserably.) - Benedikt Carpzov the Younger
Das angenehme Pleis-Athen, Behält den Ruhm vor allen, Auch allen zu gefallen, Denn es ist wunderschön. (The pleasurable Pleiss-Athens, earns its fame above all, appealing to every one, too, for it is mightily beauteous.) - Johann Sigismund Scholze
| Halle | Delitzsch, Dessau | Berlin | ||
| Kassel | Dresden | |||
| Leipzig | ||||
| Jena, Weimar, Erfurt | Gera, Zwickau | Chemnitz |
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