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10 largest cities in Germany
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Frankfurt am Main
Hanover
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Leipzig
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Leipzig

With around 600,000 inhabitants, Leipzig is the largest city in Saxony. It has an unusually well-preserved historical city center for large German cities and elegant districts from the Wilhelminian era. In addition, it was an industrial center and trade fair city with many passages in the city center, which today invite you to stroll. The city enjoys a worldwide reputation in the field of music and fine arts. The main impetus that led to the peaceful revolution and reunification of Germany (1989/90) came from here. Leipzig is rich in sights, shopping opportunities and one encounters a pronounced nightlife. The university is right in the center.

Districts
Since 1992, Leipzig has consisted of ten city districts, which in turn are divided into districts. The statistical districts including the districts, however, have little in common with the historically grown districts. Therefore, and because a large part of the sights are concentrated in the center, it makes more sense to make a spatial and structural subdivision.

center
Core of the city from the main train station via the city center to the German library in the east and the green belt of the alluvial forest in the west.

north
mainly residential and commercial areas. Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Möckern, Mockau, Wahren, Stahmeln, Lützschena, Wiederitzsch with the New Exhibition Center and Seehausen.

west
shaped by former industrial areas, today the center of art, culture and creative industries. All districts west of the Auwald: Schleußig, Lindenau, Plagwitz, Leutzsch, Kleinzschocher, Großzschocher, Grünau, Knautkleeberg, Knauthain, Lausen, Böhlitz-Ehrenberg, Rückmarsdorf, Burghausen, Miltitz, Knautnaundorf and Hartmannsdorf.

east
mainly residential areas with a mixed social structure; In recent years, however, there has been an increasing number of cultural offers and nightlife options. Neustadt, Neuschönefeld, Reudnitz, Volkmarsdorf, Anger-Crottendorf, Sellerhausen, Stünz, Stötteritz, Schönefeld, Abtnaundorf, Paunsdorf, Thekla, Heiterblick, Mölkau, Engelsdorf, Baalsdorf, Holzhausen, Liebertwolkwitz, Althen, Kleinpösna, Portitz, Plaußig.

south
is considered the center of a left and alternative cultural scene. Südvorstadt, Connewitz, Probstheida with the Monument to the Battle of the Nations, Lößnig, Dölitz, Dosen and Meusdorf.

geography
Leipzig is located in the Leipzig lowland bay, one of the southernmost foothills of the North German lowlands. Here the Parthe and Pleiße (as well as smaller rivers) flow into the White Elster. The urban area is mostly flat. The poet Ringelnatz described this in a poem about Leipzig with the words: “The mountains are so beautiful, so sublime! - But there aren't any here. ”Only the southeast is slightly hilly (Monarch Hill, Galgenberg). All other noteworthy elevations are former garbage and rubble dumps, but they have been renatured to such an extent that the people of Leipzig now perceive them as parts of the natural topography and as their "mountains" (e.g. Fockeberg).

In the middle ages
The city of Leipzig owes its origins to a small fishing village built around 900, which the Slavs (related to today's Sorbs) founded at the confluence of the Pleisse and Parthe rivers and called Lipsk (from lip or lipa, the linden tree). In 1015 the place was first mentioned in a chronicle as urbs Libzi ("City of Linden"). In 1017 Emperor Heinrich II gave Leipzig to the Merseburg Abbey. In 1134, Konrad von Wettin exchanged it for his house. The location of Leipzig at the intersection of two European long-distance trade routes, the west-eastern Via Regia (Königsstrasse) from the Rhine to Silesia and the north-southern Via Imperii (Reichsstrasse) from the Baltic Sea to Italy, favored its development as a nationally important trading center.

Under Otto the Rich (1156-89) Leipzig, then numbering 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants, was expanded and fortified and received city rights by 1170 at the latest. Margrave Dietrich founded the Thomaskloster in 1213 (from which the Thomaskirche has been preserved to this day) and gave him the patronage of the Leipzig Church. To keep the citizens hostile to him in check, the margrave had the city wall razed in 1218 and three permanent castles built.

In place of the fortress at the Grimmaischer Tor, the Dominican monastery St. Pauli was founded in 1231 (from which the university church of the same name later emerged, which was blown up in 1968). During the reign of Margrave Heinrich III. the city was expanded in 1237 by laying out the Brühl, the Ritterstrasse, the Nikolaistrasse and part of the Reichsstrasse. Around this time a merchants' guild was formed in Leipzig, which was also joined by Italian merchants from Lombardy. Dietrich the Wise, Margrave von Landsberg, granted Leipzig the right to mint in 1273.

Margrave Wilhelm II founded a university on December 4, 1409 on the basis of the establishment bull of Pope Alexander V. About a thousand German teachers and students at the University of Prague had previously moved to Leipzig because they did not agree with King Wenceslaus IV's preference for the Bohemian nation. From 1415 there was a medical, from 1446 a law faculty. The courses initially took place in colleges spread across the city.

In 1454 the moat was drawn around the inner city. With the new division of the Wettin Lands in 1485 - which was decided in Leipzig and is therefore called the Leipzig division - the city fell to the Albertine line.

In modern times
The so-called Leipzig Colloquium (also known as the Leipzig Disputation) held in 1519 in the old Pleißenburg between Luther, Karlstadt and Eck was of great influence for the further development of the Reformation. The then Duke George the Bearded still forcibly suppressed Protestant teaching in Leipzig. His brother and successor Heinrich the Pious (1539–41), however, formally introduced the Reformation (the university only joined later) and granted the council the right of patronage over the churches and schools.

After Leipzig was besieged in the Schmalkaldic War in 1547 and the suburbs were completely cremated, the fortifications were strengthened and the Pleißenburg and the suburbs rebuilt. Of the city fortifications, which were renewed from 1551, only the Moritzbastei remains today. Initiated by Elector August von Sachsen, many Dutch merchants settled in Leipzig in the second half of the 16th century. Between 1555 and 1573 the merchant Hieronymus Lotter was repeatedly elected mayor, who also worked as an architect of the Renaissance and had the old town hall and the old scales built, among other things.

The city suffered immensely in the Thirty Years War. From 1631 the imperial and Swedes alternated several times in their control. The Swedish King Gustav II Adolf won an important victory in September 1631 in the Battle of Breitenfeld (a northern suburb of Leipzig), but fell a good year later in the Battle of Lützen, which is also not far away. From 1642 to 1650 (beyond the Peace of Westphalia concluded in 1648), the Swedes under General Torstensson occupied the city, as 267,000 thalers of war tax were still outstanding. The Thirty Years' War had cost the city over a million thalers and completely shattered its prosperity.

After peace was restored, Leipzig was fortified more strongly. At that time, the linden avenues were also planted on the ramparts. In 1678 the Baroque style old trading exchange was built on the Naschmarkt. The coin conference was held in 1690, which was followed in 1691 by the introduction of the Leipzig foot (1 mark of fine silver = 12 thalers) as a coin foot for the entire empire. Under August II (the strong; r. 1694–1733), after the edict of Nantes was repealed, the so-called French colony (mostly merchants) settled in Leipzig.

One of the saddest consequences was the Seven Years' War for Leipzig, that of Friedrich the Elder. Size with heavy contributions (over 15 million thalers). In the period of the peace that followed, trade and trade fairs took off like almost never before. The university was greatly favored by Friedrich August I, from 1784 onwards the fortifications were removed and the moat turned into a park.

19th century
Even during the Napoleonic Wars, Leipzig enjoyed strong masses, but from 1809 it was occupied by changing troops. The world historical event of the Great Battle of Nations from October 16 to 19, 1813, in which Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes and German Freikorps fought against the troops of Napoleonic France and its remaining allies (including Saxony), brought terrible days to Leipzig. The city was taken by storm and received a Russian commander. The nervous fever that had broken out in the numerous overcrowded hospitals, for which churches and other public buildings were built, wiped out many thousands. The division of Saxony in 1815, after which the border with Prussia ran just a few kilometers north and west of Leipzig, was also a disadvantage for the city.

In 1824, the last public execution on the market square attracted thousands of onlookers. The story of the murderer Johann Christian Woyzeck inspired Georg Büchner to one of his most famous dramas.

The annexation of Saxony to the German Customs Union in 1833 was of great importance for Leipzig. The bookseller exchange was founded in 1836 and the Leipziger Bank in 1838. With Friedrich List and Gustav Harkort, two visionary and influential entrepreneurs were active in Leipzig who went down in history as railway pioneers and are honored in Leipzig with street names and monuments. In 1839 Leipzig became the starting point of a railway line to Dresden, the first German long-distance railway. The Leipzig-Magdeburg line followed in 1840. In 1844 the Bavarian train station was inaugurated, where the Leipzig – Hof railway line begins.

During the revolutionary year of 1848, numerous political associations worked here in different directions, Robert Blum in particular developed a great deal of agitation. There were also bloody clashes between insurgents and representatives of the authorities.

From 1856, on the initiative of the lawyer, industrial pioneer and liberal politician Carl Heine, a canal was laid from the Weißen Elster through Plagwitz to the Lindenau harbor. Huge industrial areas arose on its banks, above all for textile production, which are reminiscent of the buildings of the former colored yarn factories (today Germany's largest industrial monument and, among other things, used as lofts) and the cotton mill (today an art center). With industrialization, Leipzig also became a center of the labor movement. In 1863 the General German Workers' Association, the oldest forerunner of the SPD, was founded here under the leadership of Ferdinand Lassalle.

In 1866, Leipzig was occupied by Prussian troops for several months because Saxony was once again on the "wrong" side in the German-German war. After the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, Leipzig experienced a great boom. The population had risen moderately up to this time, but quintupled in the following 35 years. Before that, the urban area had only slightly extended beyond the medieval core. Most of the city districts known today were still villages, and around 1890 they were incorporated into the municipality. During this time, multi-storey residential quarters in the historicist style of the so-called Wilhelminian era, which are so typical of Leipzig's cityscape, churches for the respective districts, but also a whole series of representative villas of wealthy merchants and industrialists emerged. In 1868 the Reich Higher Commercial Court was relocated to Leipzig, in 1879 the city received the seat of the newly founded Reich Court, which confirmed and strengthened the city's role as a center of justice.

The Leipzig horse tram went into operation in 1872, and in 1896 it was electrified. By the beginning of the 20th century at the latest, the Leipziger Brühl achieved its importance as the “world street of furs”. Back then, people spoke of “Brühl” as the epitome of the international fur trade, much as “Wall Street” stands for the American financial sector today.

The increased importance and self-confidence of the city became evident with the construction of the New Town Hall on the site of the former Pleißenburg in 1905, which is still the largest municipal administration building in Germany today, the gigantic Völkerschlachtdenkmal, inaugurated on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations in 1913, and the new main train station, which opened in 1915 replaced the Dresden, Magdeburg and Thuringian train stations. In 1910, Leipzig was the fourth largest city in the German Empire after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and it was only after the First World War that Cologne overtook it.

1918 to 1989
At the end of 1930 the population of Leipzig peaked at 718,200. At the end of 1933 the Reichstag fire trial took place in Leipzig, in which Marinus van der Lubbe was convicted, but the prominent communists accused of being his alleged accomplices were acquitted.

During the Second World War, Leipzig was badly destroyed in Allied air raids (around 60% of the building fabric was affected), but not quite as badly as Dresden, Magdeburg or various major cities in West Germany. The destruction was also concentrated in the city center, while the pre-war buildings were largely preserved in the outskirts. On April 18, 1945, Leipzig was liberated by US Army units, but in accordance with the Yalta resolutions, it was handed over to the Soviet occupying forces in July.

In the GDR, Leipzig was the second largest city after East Berlin. As part of the uprising of June 17, 1953, there were also strikes and large protest marches in Leipzig. Around 27,000 workers went on strike and an estimated 40,000 people took part in demonstrations. The detention center and district court were stormed to rescue political prisoners. 10 people died in the violent crackdown by Soviet troops, most of them young people. A bronze relief in the form of an imprint of a tank chain in Salzgässchen today commemorates the event.

In the 1970s, the large housing estate Grünau was laid out using the panel construction housing series 70 (WBS 70). It had nearly 100,000 inhabitants at its peak and was practically a city within a city. Further large prefabricated housing estates were built in Paunsdorf, Schönefeld, Mockau, Möckern and on Straße des 18. Oktober.

As early as 1982, the weekly peace prayers began in the Nikolaikirche, which were attended in particular by opposition and regime critics. In the autumn of 1989 this was followed by the first Monday demonstrations, making Leipzig one of the starting points for the Peaceful Revolution and earning itself the reputation of being a “city of heroes”. While the police still used violence against the few participants on October 2, the first mass protest took place on October 9, with an estimated 70,000 participants, and a call by six prominent Leipzigers for non-violence was heeded. In the following weeks the protest marches grew, on October 23, around 320,000 people attended. In addition to political and civil liberties, environmental protection also played an important role. The massive pollution of air and water by industry and power plants was denounced.

Since the turning point
In the 1990s, over 100,000 jobs were lost in the collapsing industry. At the same time, billions were invested in the transport and telecommunications infrastructure. A large part of the old building stock was gradually renovated. The building contractor Jürgen Schneider bought “cream pieces” in downtown Leipzig, such as the Mädlerpassage and Barthels Hof, and had them extensively renovated, cheating various banks out of billions (Schneider affair). In 1996 the new exhibition center was opened. Nevertheless, the number of inhabitants has decreased continuously since the fall of the Wall, at the end of 1998 it had fallen to 437,000. Even a massive incorporation of the surrounding suburbs could not raise them again above their symbolic number of half a million.

The so-called “New Leipzig School” has been making a lot of talk in the arts since the 1990s, and Neo Rauch is the best-known representative of it. However, many of the artists counted here reject the term and there are no really defining common features in their works. The only thing they have in common is that they studied in Leipzig or work here. Many of them have been working on the site of the former cotton mill in the west of Leipzig since the mid-2000s.

It was not until 2002 that the population increased again moderately. During this time, well-known industrial companies were able to settle again, in 2002 the Porsche factory in Leipzig was opened, in 2005 the BMW factory followed. As part of the “Biotechnology Offensive”, Bio City Leipzig was opened in 2003, which forms the core of the Bio Campus made up of several scientific and medical institutes. The word “boomtown” in the East was mentioned again. After the unemployment rate had peaked at 21% in 2005, it fell noticeably in the following years.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, Leipzig has often been viewed as a trendy metropolis and hipster stronghold, which is reflected in the nickname “Hypezig”. The population has been increasing significantly again since 2012 and, after the city celebrated its thousandth anniversary in 2015, exceeded 600,000 in October 2019.

Trade fair city
Thanks to its location at the intersection of important long-distance trade routes, Leipzig has always been an important transshipment point for goods. The foundation of the Leipziger Messe is dated around 1165. "Annual markets" were already mentioned in the town's charter. Two dates have established themselves for this year: the spring fair at Jubilate (3rd Sunday after Easter) and the autumn fair at Michaelmas (29 September). In 1458 the New Year's fair was added to the two existing fairs. The city was granted the trade fair privilege in 1497 by Emperor Maximilian I.

In 1895 Leipzig was the first trade fair city in the world to switch from a goods fair to a sample fair, which means that the goods themselves were no longer traded in Leipzig, but only samples were presented and orders were taken. In order to take account of this new type of trade fair, large exhibition courtyards and palaces were built in the first years of the 20th century, which shaped the image of Leipzig city center in the years that followed.

On the site of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) 1913 in the south-east of the city, the exhibition grounds for the Technical Fair with 17 large halls were built between 1920 and 1928 - today known as the Old Fair.

During the GDR era, Leipzig remained a center of international trade, especially east-west trade. As before, exhibitors and buyers from the “non-socialist economic area” also came to the spring and autumn fair, which gave the city a certain international flair. Since there weren't enough hotel beds, trade fair guests were also accommodated in private apartments, so that the respective families could establish personal contact with them.

Under the auspices of a market economy, large general trade fairs such as the Leipzig spring and autumn trade fair are no longer common; instead, specialized trade fairs have been developed for certain industries. The old exhibition grounds and the exhibition halls in the city center no longer seemed suitable. Instead, the New Fair was inaugurated on the northern outskirts in 1996. It has six interconnected exhibition halls and a congress center. The most popular public fairs held here are the Leipzig Book Fair, Home-Garden-Leisure, Model-Hobby-Game and Partner Horse. The Games Convention, which was also very popular, was discontinued in 2009 in favor of Gamescom in Cologne. Auto Mobil International, once the second largest German auto show after the IAA, was last held in 2014.

Book City
Leipzig (along with Frankfurt am Main) is considered the German city of books. In 1545 the first booksellers, Steiger and Boskopf, settled in Leipzig. In 1632, the number of books presented at the Leipzig Book Fair exceeded that at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time. From 1667 onwards, a large part of the German book trade moved from Frankfurt, where too strict censorship was exercised, to Leipzig, and from the beginning of the 18th century Leipzig became the main staging area of ​​the German book trade.

The development of Leipzig, which had already begun in the previous century, into Germany's leading center for publishing and printing, intensified in the 19th century. The music publisher Hoffmeister & Kühnel has been located here since 1800, which in 1814 became the Edition C. F. Peters, the market leader in the sheet music market, which is still known today; From 1817 the publishing house F. A. Brockhaus was located here, in 1828 the Reclam publishing house followed, in 1874 the Bibliographical Institute (known for Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon and the Duden) moved from Gotha to Leipzig, in 1901 the Insel Verlag was founded here. Among the numerous printing companies, Giesecke & Devrient (founded in 1852) should be highlighted, which has developed into one of the leading producers of banknotes and securities in Germany (and even internationally).

The Exchange Association of German Booksellers was based in Leipzig from 1825 to 1990. In 1912 he initiated the establishment of the Deutsche Bücherei, which set itself the goal of collecting all books published in German.

Leipzig lost its undisputed position as the center of the German book trade and publishing industry as a result of the division of Germany. Many publishers that were based in Leipzig until then relocated their headquarters to the western zones to avoid nationalization. The German Library in Frankfurt am Main was founded in 1946 as the West German counterpart to the German Library. It is there that the German Book Trade Association was established.

After reunification, the German Library and German Library were merged to form the German National Library (DNB), with both locations being retained. The Leipzig Book Fair was also able to assert itself as a large public fair (2017: 208,000 visitors) alongside the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is more geared towards trade visitors. Most publishers and the Börsenverein, however, kept their seats in western Germany instead of returning to their old home in Leipzig.

Music city
Leipzig has a great reputation in the music world, especially in the classical one. The St. Thomas Boys Choir, one of the most famous boys' choirs in Germany, has existed since 1212. His name is closely linked to Johann Sebastian Bach, who was cantor of St. Thomas Church and director of the choir from 1723 to 1750. During this time he wrote many of his significant spiritual works. The St. Thomas Choir is still particularly committed to the performance of Bach's music.

The history of the Leipzig Opera dates back to 1693, when the Opernhaus am Brühl was founded. It was the third opera house in Europe that was founded by citizens and was not attached to a ruling court. The situation is similar with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, founded in 1743. It is even the oldest non-courtly concert orchestra in the German-speaking world that has outgrown the bourgeoisie, and with 185 professional musicians the largest professional orchestra in the world. They not only play symphony concerts in the Gewandhaus of the same name, but also make music in the opera and with the St. Thomas' Choir.

Several prominent composers and musicians worked in Leipzig during the Romantic era. Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig and spent his youth and studies here. Clara Schumann was also born in Leipzig, her husband Robert came to study in the city in 1828, and they lived here together until 1844. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was the Gewandhaus Kapellmeister from 1835 until his death in 1847, and during this time he founded the Conservatory of Music, the forerunner of the today's music college.

In the field of pop and rock music, Leipzig is known as the hometown of the bands Die Prinzen, Karussell, Klaus Renft Combo, Die Art, The Firebirds and Victorius. Due to the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen, the city enjoys a special reputation in the "black scene".

Sports city
Sport has a long tradition in Leipzig and arouses great enthusiasm among large sections of the population. Leipzig was a center of the German gymnastics movement. The German Football Association was founded in Leipzig in 1900, and VfB Leipzig became the first German champion in this sport in 1903.

From 1950, the sports science research of the German University of Physical Culture (DHfK) contributed to the international success of GDR athletes, but was also involved in systematically practiced doping. With the central stadium, inaugurated in 1956, the city had a “stadium of the hundred thousand”, in which the GDR's major gymnastics and sports festival took place eight times. From the 1960s onwards, Leipzig had two large football clubs: BSG Chemie was three times GDR champion; 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig made it to the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1986/87. After the fall of the Wall, the Leipzig clubs began to decline, especially in the area of ​​football, which reached a low point in the 2009/10 season when both 1. FC Lok and FC Sachsen (formerly BSG Chemie) found themselves in the fifth division. In the same year, however, the RB Leipzig, launched by the energy shower producer Red Bull, appeared on the scene. This has been one of the leading clubs in the 1st Bundesliga since 2016 and has also played on a European level since 2017.

The central stadium was replaced in 2000-04 by a much smaller pure football arena (almost 43,000 seats), whose naming rights are held by Red Bull. Today Leipzig is an Olympic base of the DOSB for several sports (including canoeing, athletics, judo). The central stadium was one of the venues for the 2005 Confederations Cup and the 2006 World Cup, which many Leipzigers also experienced as a “summer fairy tale”. World and European championships in hockey, fencing, archery and pentathlon took place in Leipzig. However, the application for the 2012 Olympic Games, which continued Leipzig's tradition as a sports city and excited many Leipzigers in 2004/05, failed.

Getting there

By plane
Leipzig Halle Airport (IATA: LEJ) is located approx. 15 km northwest of Leipzig. Within Germany, Lufthansa flies from Frankfurt (Main) and Munich. There are international scheduled flights from Vienna and Istanbul, among others. In the summer months, the holiday airlines offer flights to the mostly southern European travel countries.

From the Leipzig / Halle Airport train station, which is located directly below the central terminal, the S 5 and S 5X S-Bahn lines run every 30 minutes to Leipzig Hbf (approx. 15 minutes travel time, MDV tariff, single journey € 4.40) and on through the City tunnel Leipzig in the direction of Altenburg and Zwickau. Some of the ICs currently stop at the airport on the Leipzig – Halle – Magdeburg route and continue towards Hanover.

A taxi ride to Leipzig city center costs around € 45. There are several paid parking spaces and a multi-storey car park at the airport. You can get to Leipzig by car via the A14.

By train
Long-distance transport
Leipzig Central Station is located immediately north of the city center. Two ICE lines cross here:

Hamburg – Berlin – Leipzig – Erfurt (every hour; further every two hours from / to –Nuremberg – Munich or –Frankfurt am Main – Stuttgart),
(Wiesbaden) –Frankfurt am Main – Erfurt – Leipzig – Dresden (every two hours).
There is also an hourly IC connection from Hanover via Magdeburg. Every second train comes from Oldenburg and Bremen, the rest from Cologne and the Ruhr area.

The demand on the long-distance trains from Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main is very high on weekday afternoons as well as on Friday and Sunday, so a reservation is recommended.

Regional traffic
Leipzig main station is the junction of local transport lines (RE, RB and S-Bahn), including every half hour from / to Bitterfeld (30 min), Altenburg (45 min), Zwickau (1:20 hours); Hourly Grimma (35 min), Riesa (45 min), Torgau (45 min), Dessau (50 min), Naumburg (Saale) (50 min), Chemnitz (1 hour), Falkenberg (Elster) (1 hour) , Gera (1:05 ​​hours), Döbeln (1:10 hours), Dresden (1:30 hours), Magdeburg (1:35 hours), Saalfeld (2 hours); every two hours Lutherstadt Wittenberg (1:10 hours), Jena, Weimar (1:20 hours each), Cottbus (1:50 hours) and Hoyerswerda (2:30 hours)

The Halle (Saale) junction is around 30 minutes away and can be reached several times an hour with the S3 and S5 S-Bahn, whereby only the S5 goes through Leipzig / Halle Airport.

By bus
Most long-distance buses stop at the long-distance bus terminal on the east side of the main train station, which is located on the ground floor of a parking garage. If you leave the station via the platform tunnel or the eastern exit of the cross platform, you only have to cross the side street on the Saxony side.

The stop of some lines for Leipzig is on the outskirts at the exhibition center (long-distance bus stop at the final stop of tram 16). There is also a long-distance bus stop at the airport.

Few European long-distance bus connections with Eurolines exist from Zagreb, Sofia and Varna.

By street
Leipzig can be easily reached by car: the two motorways A 14 (Magdeburg – Dresden) and A 9 (Berlin – Nuremberg) lead directly past Leipzig. The ring around Leipzig is now closed by the A 38 (from Göttingen).

Coming on the A 9 from the north (Berlin, Dessau), if you want to get to the center, it is advisable to change to the A 14 at the Schkeuditzer Kreuz and drive to the Leipzig-Mitte junction. From there, the B 2 has been developed as a four-lane expressway to the edge of the city center.

If you come on the A 9 from the south (Munich, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Erfurt), navigation software usually indicates that you should take the Leipzig-West junction. On the Merseburger Straße (the western arterial road) there is often heavy traffic and there are many traffic lights, which is why you can only make slow progress and the journey to the center can drag on. This is often not sufficiently taken into account by the software when calculating the travel time. An alternative is to change to the A 38 at the Rippachtal junction and drive from the south to the city center: either from the Leipzig-Südwest junction or from the Leipzig-Süd junction, from which the B 2 as a four-lane expressway almost to the center leads. Ultimately, none of the three variants mentioned take much advantage in terms of travel time and it depends on the specific traffic situation and traffic lights.

On the A 14 from the west (Magdeburg, Hanover), if the destination is in the center of Leipzig, drive to the Leipzig-Mitte junction and then continue on the B 2.

If you arrive on the A 14 from the east (Dresden), you can use the Leipzig-Ost, Leipzig-Nordost or Leipzig-Mitte junctions. The travel time to the center is similar in all three cases.

By bicycle
The Berlin – Leipzig cycle path (250km), the Leipzig-Elbe cycle route (80km), the almost 60 km long Parthe-Mulde cycle route, the 105 km long Pleiße cycle path and the 250 km long Elster cycle path lead to Leipzig

On foot
The Ecumenical Pilgrimage of Central Germany leads through Leipzig along the course of the medieval trade route Via regia (Görlitz-Bautzen-Leipzig-Naumburg-Erfurt-Eisenach-Vacha, a total of approx. 450 km, section from Bautzen 176 km, from Erfurt 143 km) is also used as a branch of the Way of St. James in Germany. It crosses here with the Way of St. James Via Imperii (Stettin – Berlin – Wittenberg – Leipzig – Zwickau – Hof, a total of approx. 590 km, section from Berlin 212 km, from Hof ​​192 km, from Zwickau 104 km).

Around the city

Public transportation
Leipzig has a dense network of public transport with very short cycle times - even on weekends and in the evening.

S-Bahn Central Germany In December 2013, the Leipzig City Tunnel was opened between Leipzig Hbf and the Leipzig Bayrischer Bahnhof station. Six S-Bahn lines run through it, usually every 5 minutes. The tunnel has stops at Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (deep), Markt, Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz and Bayerischer Bahnhof. The Leipzig MDR stop is already south of the tunnel, but is also served by all lines. Some of the trains then go to Leipzig-Stötteritz (S1, S2, S3) and some beyond to Wurzen and Oschatz (S3). The other lines (S4, S5 / S5X, S6) go to Leipzig-Connewitz or beyond Markkleeberg to Markkleeberg-Gaschwitz (S4), Borna and Geithain (S6), Altenburg and Zwickau (S5, S5X). To the north, the lines divide after the main station stop in the directions (Leipzig) Miltitzer Allee (S1), Halle via Schkeuditz (S3), Leipzig Messe (S2, S5 / S5X, S6) and Halle via the airport (S5 / S5X) or Delitzsch / Bitterfeld / Dessau / Lutherstadt Wittenberg (S2) and Taucha, Eilenburg / Torgau / Falkenberg (Elster) / Hoyerswerda (S4). You can jump on any train between the MDR and the main train station, at the latest at the stops mentioned you should make sure that you are on the right train.

In addition, the tram is the method of choice in the city. Except for line 2, all of the 13 tram lines stop at the main train station. From the inner city ring, the lines lead in a star shape on the arterial roads in all directions. From Monday to Saturday there is a ten-minute cycle during the day, which is condensed into a five-minute cycle through the superimposition of two lines on the most important routes. From 7 p.m. and on Sundays and public holidays, every 15 minutes applies. From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., the trams run every 30 minutes, with a hunt group at the main station: daily at 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m., 0:00 and 0:30 a.m. Since the opening of the city tunnel, the departure times of the S-Bahn between 23:00 and 1:00 have been aligned with the tram hunt groups, but not all S-Bahn lines run at all hunt group times.

The buses connect the main axes with each other. Lines 60, 65, 70, 80 and 90 have the character of a Metrobus - they run at the same intervals as the trams and provide tangent connections between the districts outside the city center. Line 89, on which midibuses (smaller than a normal city bus, but larger than a minibus) are used, is the only bus line that runs every quarter of an hour through the city center and connects the main station with the music district southwest of the city center and Connewitz.

Night buses - so-called nightliners - start at 1:11 a.m., 2:22 a.m. and 3:33 a.m. On the weekend nights from Friday to Saturday or Saturday to Sunday, additional buses start at the main station at 1:45 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.

A tram or bus stop in Leipzig is rarely more than a 5-minute walk away, so it pays to leave your car behind and explore the city by public transport. In most cases, the tram is also significantly faster thanks to its own rail bed and priority switching at traffic lights.

The tariffs of the MDV (Central German Transport Association) apply in the entire city area and in the surrounding districts. A single ticket costs € 2.70 within the city (children aged 6 to 13 € 1.20), a day ticket € 7.60. A group ticket for € 11.40 to € 22.80 is worthwhile for families and groups of two to five people. Trips to the surrounding area cost a little more, depending on the number of tariff zones required. As of November 2020. Saxony / Saxony-Anhalt / Thuringia tickets are valid on all means of transport in the MDV.

An extra card (€ 1.90) must be purchased to take your bike with you. Bicycles in and around Leipzig (MDV area) can be taken free of charge on S-Bahn and regional trains.

Route network map Leipzig - Tram / Bus / S-Bahn (PDF)

Night bus network Leipzig - Nightliner (PDF)

By bicycle
Leipzig can be described as a bicycle city. The largely flat landscape, the short distances between the most important facilities and sights and the many green areas contribute to this. However, the cycle path network is still very sketchy. Bike shops and workshops can be found all over the city. The only cooperatively organized bicycle shop that also has a self-help workshop is Veloismus eG in the east of Leipzig (Eisenbahnstraße area).

There is a Nextbike rental system in the city. After you have registered via the website, app, hotline or on a station computer, you can go to more than a dozen stations in the city (including main station, Augustusplatz, Nikolaikirchhof, Marktplatz, Goerdelerring, Westplatz) for € 1 per half hour or Use a bike for € 9 per day and return it to another station.

Other bike rentals:
Tandem rental Matthias Stefan (Plaußiger Str. In the east of Leipzig). Tel .: + 49-163 78 33 0 74, email: tandem-leipzig@web.de.  Tandems of various types.
1 two-wheeler Eckhardt, Kurt-Schumacher-Str. 4 (at the main train station, west side). Tel .: + 49-341-9617274. City bikes with 3-speed gear shift, hub dynamo Open: Mon-Fri 8 am–8pm, Sat 9 am–6pm. Price: 8 € for 24 hours
2 Grupetto, Waldstraße 13 (near Waldplatz / Arena Leipzig). Tel .: + 49-341-9104750, email: waldstrasse@grupetto.de.  Open: Mon-Fri 10 am–7pm, Sat 10 am–4pm. Price: City bikes € 10 for 24 hours.
3 Little John Bikes, Martin-Luther-Ring 3-5 (opposite the New Town Hall). Tel .: + 49-341-4625919, email: leipzig-zentrum@littlejohnbikes.de.  Open: Mon-Fri 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (winter).
Veloismus eG, Neustädter Str. 24, Tel .: + 49-341-26512260. Opening times: weekdays 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays noon to 5 p.m.

In the street
Parking space is chronically scarce in the city center and the districts near the center. Larger shopping centers such as Höfe am Brühl, Petersbogen and Promenaden / Hauptbahnhof have multi-storey car parks or underground garages, and another large underground car park is located under Augustusplatz. It is worth considering avoiding the stress of driving into the city center, which is actually not made for cars, and leaving the car in one of the Park & ​​Ride areas or at the accommodation.