Frankfurt am Main
Skyline of Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main
Location of the city of Frankfurt am Main within Hesse
Coordinates	50°6′42″N 8°41′9″E / 50.11167°N 8.68583°E / 50.11167; 8.68583Coordinates: 50°6′42″N 8°41′9″E / 50.11167°N 8.68583°E / 50.11167; 8.68583
Administration
Country	Germany
State	Hesse
Admin. region	Darmstadt
District	Urban district
City subdivisions	16 area districts (Ortsbezirke) 46 city districts (Stadtteile)
Lord Mayor	Petra Roth (CDU)
Governing parties	CDU / Greens
Basic statistics
Area	248.31 km2 (95.87 sq mi)
Elevation	112 m  (367 ft)
Population	679,664 (31 December 2010)[1]
- Density	2,737 /km2 (7,089 /sq mi)
- Urban	2,895,000
- Metro	5,600,000 (06/2006)
Founded	1st century
Other information
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Licence plate	F
Postal codes	60001-60599, 65901-65936
Area codes	069, 06109, 06101
Website	www.frankfurt.de

Frankfurt am Main ( /ˈfræŋkfərt/; German pronunciation: [ˈfʁaŋkfʊɐt am ˈmaɪn] ( listen)), commonly known as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2011 population of 695,624.^[2] The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010.^[3] The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region which has a population of 5,600,000^[4] and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region.

Frankfurt is the financial and transportation centre of Germany and the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is seat of the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Trade Fair, as well as several large commercial banks, e.g. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and DZ Bank. Frankfurt Airport is one of the world's busiest international airports, Frankfurt Central Station is one of the largest terminal stations in Europe, and the Frankfurter Kreuz is one of the most heavily used Autobahn interchanges in Europe. Frankfurt lies in the former American Occupation Zone of Germany, and it was formerly the headquarters city of the U.S. Army in Germany.

Frankfurt is an international centre for finance, commerce, culture, transport, education and tourism. It is therefore considered an alpha world city as listed by the Loughborough University group's 2010 inventory. It was ranked 10th among global cities by the Global Power City Index 2011, 11th by the Global City Competitiveness Index 2012 and 8th among international financial centers by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2011.

In 2011, the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of cities around the world.^[5] According to The Economist cost of living survey, Frankfurt is Germany’s most expensive city, and the 10th most expensive in the world.^[6]

Overview[link]

Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Two Lufthansa Airbus A380s at Frankfurt Airport

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University

The three major pillars of Frankfurt's economy are finance, transport and trade fairs.

Frankfurt has been Germany's financial centre for centuries and it is the home of a number of major banks and brokerages. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) is by far Germany's largest, and is one of the world's most important. Frankfurt is also the seat of the European Central Bank (Europäische Zentralbank) which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone, consisting of 17 European Union member states that have adopted the euro (€) as their common currency and sole legal tender, and of the German Federal Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank). In 2010, 63 national and 152 international banks had their registered offices here including the headquarters of the major German banks, notably Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, as well as 41 representative offices of international banks.^[7]

The importance of Frankfurt as a financial center is rising in recent years. Indications are the establishment of the European supervisory authority for insurance EIOPA (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority) and the installation of the EU system risk-Council, the European authority for the early detection, prevention and management of systemic risks within the financial market in the EU.

Frankfurt has an excellent transportation infrastructure: Frankfurt Airport (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) is the third busiest airport by passenger traffic in Europe and is the main hub for Germany's flag carrier Lufthansa, the largest airline in Europe. The airport is close to the Frankfurter Kreuz (Autobahn interchange) where two of the most heavily used motorways in Europe, Bundesautobahn 3 in west-east-direction and Bundesautobahn 5 in north-south-direction, meet. In addition, Frankfurt has three railway stations for high-speed ICE trains: Frankfurt Central Station (Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof), Frankfurt South Station (Frankfurt Südbahnhof) and Frankfurt Airport long-distance Station (Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof). Frankfurt is the busiest junction operated by Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, with 342 daily trains to domestic and European destinations.^[8]

Frankfurt Trade Fair (Messe Frankfurt) is the third largest trade fair in the world with a total area of 578,000 square metres (6,221,540 square feet). It has ten halls with a total of 321,754 square meters (3,463,331 square feet) of exhibition space and 96,078 square metres (1,034,175 square feet) of outdoor area more available. Many large trade fairs are held in Frankfurt each year, notably the Frankfurt Motor Show (Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung - IAA), the world's largest motor show, the Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse), the world's largest book fair, and Musikmesse, the world's largest music fair.

Frankfurt is also home to many cultural and educational institutions including the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, many museums (e.g. Städel, Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Goethe House), and two major botanical gardens, the Palmengarten, which is Germany's largest, and the Botanical Garden of the Goethe University.

A unique feature of Frankfurt is its significant number of skyscrapers in the city center which form the Frankfurt skyline. Frankfurt is one of only a few cities in the European Union that have such a skyline, the others being London, Warsaw, Madrid, Rotterdam and La Défense in the outer Paris region. Because of the city's skyline, Germans sometimes humorously refer to Frankfurt am Main as "Mainhattan".

Panorama of Frankfurt seen from the Maintower observation deck

Name[link]

The legend of the Frankenfurt (ford of the Franks)

Frankonovurd (in old high German) or Vadum Francorum (in Latin) were the first names mentioned in written records from 794. It transformed to Frankenfort during the Middle Ages and then to Franckfort and Franckfurth in Modern history. At the beginning of the 19th century the spelling of Frankfurt was widely established. The affix "am Main" has been used regularly since the 14th century.

In English, the city's full name of Frankfurt am Main translates to "Frankfurt on the Main" (pronounced like English mine or German mein). Frankfurt is located on an ancient ford (German: Furt) on the Main river. As a part of early Franconia, the inhabitants were the early Franks, thus the city's name reveals its legacy as being "the ford of the Franks on the Main river".^[9]

Among English speakers, the city is commonly known simply as Frankfurt, though Germans occasionally call it by its full name when it is necessary to distinguish it from the other (significantly smaller) German city called Frankfurt in the federated state of Brandenburg, Frankfurt (Oder) on the Polish border.

The common abbreviations for the city, which are primarily used in railway services and on road signs, are Frankfurt (Main), Frankfurt (M), Frankfurt a.M., Frankfurt/Main or Frankfurt/M. The common acronym for the city is Ffm or FFM.

The older English spelling of Frankfort is now rarely seen.

History[link]

Frankfurt in 1612

The Frankfurt Parliament at St. Paul's Church in 1848

Aerial view of the cathedral in May 1945 after World War II

Reconstruction (1981–1984) of six houses at the east side of the Römerberg which were destroyed in World War II

In the area of the Römer, Roman settlements were established, probably in the 1st century; some artifacts from that era are found even to this day. The city district Bonames has a name probably dating back to Roman times—it is thought to be derived from bona me(n)sa. Nida (Heddernheim) was also a Roman civitas capital.

The name of Frankfurt on Main is derived from the Franconofurd of the Germanic tribe of the Franks; Furt (cf. English ford) where the river was shallow enough to be crossed by wading. Alemanni and Franks lived there and by 794 Charlemagne presided over an imperial assembly and church synod, at which Franconofurd (-furt -vurd) was first mentioned.

Frankfurt was one of the most important cities in the following Holy Roman Empire. From 855 the German kings and emperors were elected in Frankfurt and crowned in Aachen. From 1562 the kings/emperors were also crowned in Frankfurt, Maximilian II being the first. This tradition ended in 1792, when Franz II was elected. His coronation was deliberately held on Bastille Day, 14 July, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The elections and coronations took place in St. Bartholomäus cathedral, known as the Kaiserdom (en: Emperor's Cathedral), or in its predecessors.

The Frankfurter Messe (Frankfurt Trade Fair) was first mentioned in 1150. In 1240, Emperor Friedrich II granted an Imperial privilege to its visitors, meaning they would be protected by the Empire. The fair became particularly important when similar fairs in French Beaucaire lost attraction around 1380. Book trade fairs have been held in Frankfurt since 1478.

In 1372 Frankfurt became a Reichsstadt (en:Imperial city), i.e. directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor and not to a regional ruler or a local nobleman.

Frankfurt managed to remain neutral during the Thirty Years' War, but suffered from the bubonic plague that was brought to the city by refugees. After the end of the war, Frankfurt regained its wealth.

In the Napoleonic Wars Frankfurt was occupied or bombarded several times by French troops. It nevertheless still remained a free city until the total collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805/6. In 1806 it become part of the principality of Aschaffenburg under the Fürstprimas (Prince-Primate), Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg. This also meant that Frankfurt was incorporated into the confederation of the Rhine. In 1810 Dalberg adopted the title of a Grand Duke of Frankfurt. Napoleon intended to make his adopted son Eugène de Beauharnais, already Prince de Venise ("prince of Venice", a newly established primogeniture in Italy), Grand Duke of Frankfurt after Dalberg's death (since the latter as a Catholic bishop had no legitimate heirs). The Grand Duchy remained a short episode lasting from 1810 to 1813, when the military tide turned in favour of the Anglo-Prussian lead allies, which overturned the Napoleonic order of central Europe. Dalberg abdicated in favour of Eugène de Beauharnais, which of course was only a symbolic action, as the latter effectively never did rule after the ruin of the French armies and Frankfurt being taken by the allies.

After Napoleon's final defeat and abdication, the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815, redrawing the map of Europe) dissolved the grand-duchy, and Frankfurt entered the newly founded German Confederation (till 1866) as a free city, becoming the seat of its Bundestag, the confederal parliament where the nominally presiding Habsburg Emperor of Austria was represented by an Austrian "presidential envoy".

After the ill-fated revolution of 1848, Frankfurt was the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the Frankfurter Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) and was opened on 18 May 1848. The institution failed in 1849 when the Prussian king declared that he would not accept "a crown from the gutter". In the year of its existence, the assembly developed a common constitution for a unified Germany, with the Prussian king as its monarch.

Frankfurt lost its independence after the Austro-Prussian War as Prussia in 1866 annexed several smaller states, among them the Free City of Frankfurt. The Prussian administration incorporated Frankfurt into its province of Hesse-Nassau. The formerly independent towns of Bornheim and Bockenheim were incorporated in 1890.

In 1914 the citizens of Frankfurt founded the University of Frankfurt, later called Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. This is the only civic foundation of a university in Germany; today it is one of Germany's largest universities.

From April 6 to May 17, 1920, following military intervention to put down the Ruhr Uprising, Frankfurt was occupied by French troops.^[10] The French claimed that Articles 42 to 44 of the peace treaty of Versailles concerning the demilitarisation of the Rhineland had been broken.^[11] In 1924 Ludwig Landmann became the first Jewish Mayor of the city, and led a significant expansion during the following years. However, during the Nazi era, the synagogues of Frankfurt were destroyed.

The city of Frankfurt was severely bombed in World War II (1939–1945). About 5,500 residents were killed during the raids, and the once famous medieval city centre, by that time the largest in Germany, was destroyed. Post-war reconstruction took place in a sometimes simple modern style, thus irrevocably changing the architectural face of Frankfurt. Only very few landmark buildings have been reconstructed historically, albeit in a simplified manner. The collection of historically significant Cairo Genizah documents of the Municipal Library was destroyed when the city was bombed. According to Arabist and Genizah scholar S.D. Goitein, "not even handlists indicating its contents have survived."^[12]

Frankfurt became a ground battlefield commencing 26 March 1945, when the Allied advance into Germany was forced to take the city in contested urban combat that included a river assault. The US 5th Infantry Division and US 6th Armored Division captured Frankfurt after several days of intense fighting, and it was declared largely secure on 29 March 1945. More details of this battle are provided at History of Frankfurt am Main.^[13]

After the end of the war, Frankfurt became a part of the newly founded state of Hesse, consisting of the old Hesse-(Darmstadt) and the Prussian Hesse provinces. The city was part of the American Zone of Occupation of Germany. The Military Governor for the United States Zone (1945–1949) and the United States High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG) (1949–1952) had their headquarters in the IG Farben Building, intentionally left undamaged by the Allies' wartime bombardment. Frankfurt was the original choice for the provisional capital of West Germany—they even went as far as constructing a new parliament building that has never been used for its intended purpose. Since 1949 it is used to house the radio studios of Hessischer Rundfunk. In the end, Konrad Adenauer (the first post-war Chancellor) preferred the tiny city of Bonn, for the most part because it was close to his hometown, but also for another reason; many other prominent politicians opposed the choice of Frankfurt out of concern that Frankfurt, one of the largest German cities and a former centre of the old German-dominated Holy Roman Empire, would be accepted as a "permanent" capital of Germany, thereby weakening the West German population's support for reunification and the eventual return of the Government to Berlin.

During the 1970s, the city created one of Europe's most efficient underground transportation systems. That system includes a suburban rail system (S-Bahn) capable of reaching outlying communities as well as the city centre, and a deep underground light rail system with smaller coaches (U-Bahn) also capable of travelling above ground on street rails.

Since the postwar period Frankfurt has emerged once again as the financial and transportation centre of Germany.

Geography[link]

Geographic location[link]

Frankfurt is located on both sides of the Main river south-east of the Taunus mountain range. It is the largest city in the federated state (Bundesland) of Hesse (Hessen) in the south-western part of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland). The southern part of the city contains the Frankfurt City Forest (Frankfurter Stadtwald), Germany's largest forest within a city. The city area is 248.31 km² (95.87 sq mi) and extends over 23.4 km (14.54 mi) in east-west-direction and 23.3 km (14.48 mi) in north-south-direction. The city centre of Frankfurt is located on the north side of the Main river in the city district of Altstadt (the historical center) and the surrounding Innenstadt district. The geographical center is located in the city district of Bockenheim near Frankfurt West Station.

Frankfurt is the center of the densely populated Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region (Rhein-Main-Gebiet) with a population of 5.6 million. Other important cities in the region are Wiesbaden (the capital of Hesse), Mainz (the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate), Darmstadt, Offenbach am Main, Hanau, Aschaffenburg, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe and Rüsselsheim.

Climate[link]

Frankfurt has a temperate-oceanic climate with relatively cold winters and warm summers. Its average annual temperature is 10.1 °C (50.2 °F), with monthly mean temperatures ranging from 1.4 °C (34.5 °F) in January to 19.3 °C (66.7 °F) in July.

Neighbouring districts and cities[link]

To the west, Frankfurt borders the administrative district (Landkreis) of Main-Taunus-Kreis with cities such as Hattersheim am Main, Kriftel, Hofheim am Taunus, Kelkheim (Taunus), Liederbach am Taunus, Sulzbach (Taunus), Schwalbach am Taunus and Eschborn; to the northwest the Hochtaunuskreis with Steinbach (Taunus), Oberursel (Taunus) and Bad Homburg vor der Höhe; to the north the Wetteraukreis with Karben and Bad Vilbel; to the northeast the Main-Kinzig-Kreis with Niederdorfelden and Maintal; to the southeast the city of Offenbach am Main; to the south the Kreis Offenbach with Neu-Isenburg and to the southwest the Kreis Groß-Gerau with Mörfelden-Walldorf, Rüsselsheim and Kelsterbach.

Together with these cities (and some larger nearby cities, e.g. Hanau, Rodgau, Dreieich, Langen) Frankfurt forms a contiguous built-up urban area called Stadtregion Frankfurt which is not an official administrative district. The urban area had an estimated population of 2.3 million in 2010 and is therefore the 13th largest urban area of the European Union.

Demographics[link]

Population[link]

Frankfurt seen from the air

With a population of 688,249 in 2010, Frankfurt is the fifth largest city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. The city is considered a multicultural city because it is home to people of 180 nationalities. In addition to the ethnic German majority, the city contains sizable immigrant populations from Turkey, Italy, Colombia, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Greece, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pakistan, Spain, Portugal, France, Netherlands, Japan, the United States, Austria, India, the United Kingdom, Romania, Afghanistan, Russia, Bulgaria, Lebanon and China. The Frankfurt urban area is also home to the second-largest Korean community in Europe, and to Germany's largest Sri Lankan Tamil community. Nearly 25 percent of Frankfurt's residents are foreign nationals. In addition, 40 percent of Frankfurt's residents, and 65 percent of those below the age of five, come from an immigrant background.^[15]

Frankfurt has been a Großstadt (a city with at least 100,000 residents by definition) since 1875. With 414,576 residents in 1910 it was the 9th largest city in Germany and the number of inhabitants grew to 553,464 before World War II. After the war, at the end of the year 1945, the number had dropped to 358,000. In the following years the population grew again and reached an all-time-high of 691,257 in 1963. It dropped again to 592,411 in 1986 but has increased since then. According to the demographic forecast of the City of Frankfurt the population will reach the 700,000-mark in 2012 and will further increase up to 725,000 in 2020.

Religion[link]

Frankfurt was historically a Protestant-dominated city. However, during the 19th century an increasing number of Catholics moved there. In 2006, Catholicism was the largest religious denomination (25 percent) closely followed by Protestantism (23 percent).^[16] According to the Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland (Central Council of Jews in Germany) there are 7,300 Jews affiliated with Judaism in Frankfurt, giving it the third largest Jewish community (behind Berlin and Munich) in Germany.

Politics[link]

Frankfurt is one of five independent district-free cities (kreisfreie Städte) in Hesse which means that it does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity, in this case it is not part of a Landkreis. The other four cities are the second to fifth largest cities in Hesse: Wiesbaden, Kassel, Darmstadt and Offenbach am Main. A kreisfreie Stadt has territorial sovereignty within its defined city limits.

Since 1995 Frankfurt's municipal leader has been Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeisterin) Petra Roth of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU and the Alliance '90/The Greens (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen) currently form the governing parties in Frankfurt.

International relations[link]

Frankfurt's Lord Mayor Petra Roth (CDU)

Twin towns and sister cities (Städtepartnerschaften)

Frankfurt twinned with, or has sister city relationships with:^[17]

• Lyon, France, since 1960^[18]
• Birmingham, United Kingdom, since 1966
• Milan, Italy, since 1971^[19]
• Cairo, Egypt, since 1979
• Tel Aviv, Israel, since 1980^[20]
• Guangzhou (also known as Canton), People's Republic of China, since 1988^[21]
• Toronto, Canada, since 1989
• Prague, Czech Republic, since 1990^[22]
• Budapest, Hungary, since 1990^[23]
• Leipzig, Germany, since 1991^[24]
• Granada, Nicaragua, since 1991
• Asmara, Eritrea, since 1991
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates, since 2005
• Guadalajara, Mexico, since 2011
• Yokohama, Japan, since 2011

Partnerships (Freundschaftsverträge)

Partnerships are a weaker form of cooperation than the sister city relationship, being more like a fixed-term cooperation or limited to certain projects. Frankfurt has partnerships with the following cities:

• Deuil-la-Barre, France, partnered with Nieder-Eschbach, since 1967; incorporated in 1972
• Kraków in Poland, since 1991^[25]

Subdivisions[link]

Frankfurt's financial district

The city is divided into 46 city districts (Stadtteile), which are again divided into 118 city boroughs (Stadtbezirke) and 448 electoral districts (Wahlbezirke). The 46 city districts are combined for political reasons into 16 area districts (Ortsbezirke), which each have a district committee and chairperson.

The largest city district by population and area is Sachsenhausen, the smallest is Altstadt, Frankfurt's historical center. Three larger city districts (Sachsenhausen, Westend and Nordend) are divided for administrative purposes into a northern (-Nord) and a southern (-Süd) part, respectively a western (-West) and an eastern (-Ost) part, but are generally considered as one city district (that's why there are often only 43 city districts mentioned, even on the official website of the City of Frankfurt).^[26]

Some larger housing areas are often falsely called city districts, even by locals, like Nordweststadt (part of Niederursel, Heddernheim and Praunheim), Goldstein (part of Schwanheim), Riedberg (part of Kalbach-Riedberg) and Europaviertel (part of Gallus). The Bankenviertel (banking district), Frankfurt's financial district, is also not an administrative city district (it covers parts of the western Innenstadt district, the southern Westend district and the eastern Bankenviertel district).

Many city districts are incorporated suburbs (Vororte), or were previously independent cities, like Höchst. Some like Nordend and Westend arose during the rapid growth of the city in the Gründerzeit following the Unification of Germany, while others were formed from territory which previously belonged to other city district, like Dornbusch and Riederwald.

Population by districts[link]

Frankfurt as the centre of the Rhine Main Region

The 16 Ortsbezirke (area districts) of Frankfurt

The 46 Stadtteile (city districts) of Frankfurt

History of incorporations[link]

Until the year 1877 the city territory of Frankfurt consisted of the present-day inner-city districts of Altstadt, Innenstadt, Bahnhofsviertel, Gutleutviertel, Gallus, Westend, Nordend, Ostend and Sachsenhausen.

Bornheim, which was part of an administrative district called Landkreis Frankfurt, became part of the city on January 1, 1877, followed by Bockenheim on April 1, 1895. Seckbach, Niederrad and Oberrad followed on July 1, 1900. The Landkreis Frankfurt was finally dispersed on April 1, 1910, and therefore Berkersheim, Bonames, Eckenheim, Eschersheim, Ginnheim, Hausen, Heddernheim, Niederursel, Praunheim, Preungesheim and Rödelheim joined the City of Frankfurt. In the same year a new city district, Riederwald, was created on territory that had formerly belonged to Seckbach and Ostend.

On April 1, 1928, the City of Höchst became part of Frankfurt, as well as its city districts Sindlingen, Unterliederbach and Zeilsheim. Simultaneously the Landkreis Höchst was dispersed with its member cities either joining Frankfurt (Fechenheim, Griesheim, Nied, Schwanheim, Sossenheim) or joining the newly established Landkreis of Main-Taunus-Kreis.

Dornbusch became a city district in 1946. It was created on territory that had formerly belonged to Eckenheim and Ginnheim.

At the beginning of the 1970s the government of Hesse developed plans to significantly reduce the number of administrative districts in Hesse (Hessische Gebietsreform). On August 1, 1972, the smaller suburbs of Harheim, Kalbach, Nieder-Erlenbach and Nieder-Eschbach became districts of Frankfurt while other neighbouring suburbs chose to join the Main-Taunus-Kreis, the Landkreis Offenbach, the Kreis Groß-Gerau, the Hochtaunuskreis, the Main-Kinzig-Kreis or the Wetteraukreis.

Bergen-Enkheim was the last suburb to become part of Frankfurt on January 1, 1977.

Flughafen became an official city district in 1979. It covers the area of Frankfurt Airport which had formerly belonged to Sachsenhausen and the neighbouring City of Mörfelden-Walldorf.

Frankfurts youngest city district is Frankfurter Berg. It was part of Bonames until 1996.

Kalbach was officially renamed "Kalbach-Riedberg" in 2006 because of the large residential housing development in the area which goes by the name of Riedberg.

Cityscape[link]

Landmarks[link]

Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral

Saint Paul's Church

• Saint Bartholomew's Cathedral

Saint Bartholomew's Cathedral (Dom Sankt Bartholomäus), named after Bartholomew the Apostle, is a gothic building which was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the foundation of an earlier church from the Merovingian time. From 1356 onwards, kings of the Holy Roman Empire were elected in this church, and from 1562 to 1792, the Roman-German emperors were crowned here. Today it is the main church of Frankfurt.

Since the 18th century, St. Bartholomew's has been called "the cathedral" by the people, although it has never been a bishop's seat. In 1867, the cathedral was destroyed by a fire and rebuilt in its present style. It was again partially destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s. The height of the cathedral is 95 metres. The cathedral tower has a viewing platform open to the public at a height of 66 metres.

• Saint Paul's Church

Saint Paul's Church (Paulskirche) is a national historic monument in Germany with great political symbolism, because it was the seat of the first democratically elected Parliament in 1848. It was established in 1789 as a Protestant church but was not completed until 1833. Its importance has its root in the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the church during the revolutionary years of 1848/49 in order to write a constitution for a united Germany. The attempt failed because the monarchs of Prussia and Austria did not want to lose power, and in 1849 Prussian troops ended the democratic experiment by force of arms and the parliament was dissolved. Afterwards, the building was used for church services again.

St. Paul's was partially destroyed in World War II, particularly the interior of the building, which now has a modern appearance. It was quickly and symbolically rebuilt after the war; today it is not used for religious services, but mainly for exhibitions and events.

• Archäologischer Garten Frankfurt

The Archaeological Garden contains small parts of the oldest buildings ever recovered in Frankfurt: An ancient Roman settlement and the Frankfurt Royal Palace (Kaiserpfalz Frankfurt) from the 6th century. The garden is located between the Römerberg and St. Bartholomew's. It was discovered after World War II when the area was heavily bombed and later partly rebuilt. The remains were preserved and are now open to the public. There are plans underway to construct a building on top of the garden but anyhow it is decided that the garden will stay open to the public.

• Römer

"Römer" is the German word for "Roman" and is the name of a complex of nine houses that form the Frankfurt city hall (Rathaus). The houses where acquired by the city council in 1405 from a wealthy merchant family. The middle house became the city hall and was later connected with the neighbouring buildings. Located on the upper floor is the Kaisersaal ("Emperor's Hall") where the newly crowned emperors held their banquets. The Römer was partially destroyed in World War II and later rebuilt. The surrounding square, the Römerberg, is named after the city hall.

A 360 degree view of the Römerberg (left: Samstagsberg, middle: Alte Nikolaikirche, right: Römer)

The Alte Oper, now a concert hall, at the Opernplatz

Eschenheimer Turm

Hauptwache building

• Haus Wertheim

Wertheim House is the only timbered house in the Altstadt district that survived the heavy bombings of World War II without any damage. It is located on the Römerberg next to the Historical Museum.

• Saalhof

The Saalhof is the oldest conserved building in the Altstadt district which dates back to the 12th century. It was used as an exhibition hall by Dutch clothiers when trade fairs were held in Frankfurt during the 14th and 15th century. The Saalhof was partly destroyed in World War II and later rebuilt. Today it serves as a part of the Historical Museum.

• Eiserner Steg

The Eiserner Steg (Iron Bridge) is a pedestrian-only bridge over the Main river which connects the Römerberg and Sachsenhausen. It was built in 1868 and was only the second bridge to cross the river in Frankfurt. After World War II, when it was blown up by the Wehrmacht, it was quickly rebuilt in 1946. Today around 10,000 people cross the bridge on a daily basis.

• Alte Oper

The Alte Oper is a former opera house, hence the name "Old Opera". It was built in 1880 by architect Richard Lucae. It was one of the major opera houses in Germany until it was heavily damaged in World War II. Until the late 1970s it was a ruin, nicknamed "Germany's Most Beautiful Ruin". There were even efforts to just blow it up. Former Frankfurt Lord Mayor Rudi Arndt called for blowing it up in the 1960s, which earned him the nickname "Dynamite-Rudi". (Later on, Arndt said he never had meant his suggestion seriously.)

Due to public pressure it was finally fully reconstructed and reopened in 1981. Today it functions as a famous concert hall, while operas are performed at the "new" Oper Frankfurt. The inscription on the frieze of the Alte Oper says: "Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten" ("To the true, the beautiful, the good").

• Eschenheimer Turm

The Eschenheim Tower (Eschenheimer Turm) was erected at the beginning of the 15th century and served as a city gate as part of the late-medieval fortifications of Frankfurt. It is the oldest and most unaltered building in the Innenstadt district.

• Saint Catherine's Church

St. Catherine's Church (Katharinenkirche) is the largest evangelical church in Frankfurt, dedicated to the martyred early Christian saint, Catherine of Alexandria. It is located in the city centre at the entrance to the Zeil, the central shopping street.