10 largest cities in Germany
Berlin
Hamburg
Munich
Cologne
Frankfurt am Main
Hanover
Dusseldorf
Leipzig
Bremen
Dresden
Cologne is an independent city in the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia with around 1.1 million inhabitants. It is the most
populous municipality in the state and - after Berlin, Hamburg and
Munich - the fourth largest in Germany.
The city on the Rhine
belongs to the administrative district of Cologne, whose
administrative seat it is. The Cologne / Bonn region is the center
of the metropolitan area between Cologne Bay and Oberbergisches Land
with a good four million inhabitants. Cologne is also the Rhenish
population center of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region with around
ten million inhabitants and the Rhineland metropolitan region with
around nine million inhabitants.
The city is one of the most
important travel destinations in Europe because of the important
Cologne Cathedral and its Romanesque churches as well as other
medieval monuments, a city history of over 2000 years, important
events and its cultural and culinary heritage.
Today's
metropolis and former imperial city was founded in Roman times under
the name Oppidum Ubiorum and elevated to the status of city in 50 AD
as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Colonia or CCAA for short).
The favorable location on the Rhine with the crossing of important
west-east trade routes and the seat of secular and especially
ecclesiastical power contributed to Cologne's supraregional status
in the Holy Roman Empire. Today it is the seat of the Archdiocese of
Cologne, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in Germany, and was the
seat of the Electorate of Cologne until 1803.
As a Hanseatic
city, Cologne became an important trading location thanks to free
trade. Cologne is of international importance as an economic and
cultural metropolis. The city is one of the most important locations
for the chemical and automotive industry and is home to, partly
together with some of its suburbs, company headquarters and
production facilities of automotive brands such as Ford and Toyota
as well as chemical groups such as Lanxess. The carnival stronghold
is also the seat of many public associations and professional sports
clubs. Numerous television and radio stations such as RTL and WDR as
well as film studios, music producers, publishing houses and other
media companies are located here. Cologne is also one of the leading
centers of the global art trade.
The city is also an
important congress and trade fair location: the photographic
technology fair Photokina, the fitness and health fair FIBO, the
confectionery fair and the video game fair Gamescom are considered
to be the world's leading trade fairs, and Art Cologne is the
world's oldest art fair.
Thanks to the University of Cologne
with around 50,000 students, the Technical University of Cologne
(around 25,000 students) and numerous other universities, the city
is the largest educational and research location in West Germany.
The importance of Cologne as a transport hub is demonstrated by
the extensive long-distance passenger rail transport - there are
three long-distance train stations in the city - as well as the
Eifeltor station, which is one of the largest container handling
stations in Europe. The infrastructure is supplemented by four
inland ports and Cologne / Bonn Airport.