Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt am Main, commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hessen and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a population of 791,232 inhabitants as of 2022. The urban area had an estimated population of over 2.3 million. The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region which has a population of more than 5.8 million and is Germany's second largest metropolitan area.
Frankfurt is one of the world's most important financial centres and Germany's financial capital, followed by Hamburg and Stuttgart. Frankfurt was ranked eighth at the International Financial Centers Development Index (2013), eighth at the Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index (2008), ninth at the Global Financial Centres Index (September 2013), tenth at the Global Power City Index (2011), 11th at the Global City Competitiveness Index (2012), 12th at the Innovation Cities Index (2011), 14th at the World City Survey (2011) and 23rd at the Global Cities Index (2012).
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Name
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Among English speakers the city is commonly known simply as "Frankfurt", though Germans, especially since the German reunification 1990, call it by its full name in order to distinguish it from the other (significantly smaller) "Frankfurt" in the state of Brandenburg, Frankfurt (Oder) or Frankfurt-on-the-Oder.
- Free City of Frankfurt (until 1806) within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
- Grand Duchy of Frankfurt (1810–1813)
- Free City of Frankfurt, (1815–1866) an independent city-state and member of the German Confederation
- Frankfurt Parliament (German National Assembly founded during the Revolution of 1848)
- Rural district of Frankfurt, a rural district (Landkreis) in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau (1885–1910)
Coat of arms
The arms show the Imperial eagle, as the city was granted the rank of Imperial City in 1245. It is likely that the colours initially were the imperial colours. The present colours are known since around 1400. The crown was later added, as was the blue colour of claws and tongue. The arms have basically never changed since, although the shape and size of the eagle have varied widely. Only from 1925-1936 a radically different eagle was used.[1]
History
In English, this city's name translates to "Frankfurt on the Main" (pronounced like English mine or German mein). The city is located on an ancient ford on the river Main, the German word for which is "Furt". A part of early Franconia, the inhabitants were the early Franks and Alemanni. Thus the city's name receives its legacy as being the "ford of the Franks".
By 794, Charlemagne presided over an imperial assembly and church synod, at which Franconofurd (alternative spellings end with -furt and -vurd) was first mentioned. It was one of the two capitals of Charlemagne's grandson Louis the German, together with Regensburg. Louis founded the collegiate church, rededicated in 1239 to Bartholomew the Apostle and now Frankfurt Cathedral.
Frankfurt was one of the most important cities in the Holy Roman Empire. From 855, the German kings were elected and crowned in Aachen. From 1562, the kings and emperors were crowned and elected in Frankfurt, initiated for Maximilian II. 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 (Emperor's Cathedral), or its predecessors.
The Frankfurter Messe ('Frankfurt Trade Fair') was first mentioned in 1150. In 1240, Roman-German 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 began in 1478.
In 1372, Frankfurt became a Reichsstadt (Imperial Free City), i.e., directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor and not to a regional ruler or a local nobleman.
In 1585, Frankfurt traders established a system of exchange rates for the various currencies that were circulating to prevent cheating and extortion. Therein lay the early roots for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Frankfurt managed to remain neutral during the Thirty Years' War, but suffered from the bubonic plague that refugees brought to the city. After the war, Frankfurt regained its wealth. In the late 1770s the theatre principal Abel Seyler was based in Frankfurt, and established the city's theatrical life.
After Napoleon's final defeat and abdication, the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) dissolved the grand-duchy and Frankfurt became a fully sovereign city-state with a republican form of government. Frankfurt entered the newly founded German Confederation (till 1866) as a free city, becoming the seat of its Bundestag.
In 1914, the citizens founded the University of Frankfurt, later named Goethe University Frankfurt. This marked the only civic foundation of a university in Germany; today it is one of Germany's largest.
Frankfurt was severely bombed in World War II (1939–1945). Thousands of men, women and children were killed during the raids, and the once-famous medieval city centre, by that time the largest in Germany, was almost completely destroyed. It became a ground battlefield on 26 March 1945, when the Allied invasion into Germany was forced to take the city in contested urban combat that included a river assault.
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. Frankfurt was the original choice for the provisional capital city of the newly founded state of West Germany in 1949.
Encyclopædia Britannica
- There is evidence of Celtic and Germanic settlements in the city dating from the 1st century bce, as well as Roman remains from the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. The name Frankfurt (“Ford [Passage or Crossing] of the Franks”) probably arose about 500 ce, when the Franks drove the Alemanni south, but the first written mention of Franconofurt stems from Charlemagne’s personal biographer, Einhard, in the late 8th century.[2] The Pfalz (imperial castle) served as an important royal residence of the East Frankish Carolingians from the 9th century through later medieval times. In the 12th century the Hohenstaufen dynasty erected a new castle in Frankfurt and walled the town. The Hohenstaufen ruler Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) was elected king there in 1152, and in 1356 the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV (the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire) designated Frankfurt as the permanent site for the election of the German kings. Frankfurt am Main was a free imperial city from 1372 until 1806, when Napoleon I made it the seat of government for the prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1810 the city became the capital of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, created by Napoleon. From 1815, when Napoleon fell, Frankfurt was again a free city, where in 1848–49 the Frankfurt National Assembly met. From 1816 to 1866 the city was the seat of the German Bundestag (Federal Diet) and thus the capital of Germany. After the Seven Weeks’ War in 1866, Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia and thereby lost its free-city status. It was only after its integration into a united Germany that Frankfurt developed into a large industrial city.[3]
Federal Republic of Germany
Situated on the Main River, south-east of the Taunus mountain range, 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 (Europäische Zentralbank), the German Federal Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank), the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Trade Fair, as well as several large commercial banks. 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 (Autobahn interchange) is the most heavily used interchange in continental Europe. Frankfurt is the only German city listed as one of ten "alpha world cities".
Frankfurt lies in the former American Occupation Zone of Germany after World War II, and it was formerly the headquarters city of the U.S. Army in Germany.
Frankfurt is considered an "alpha world city", as listed by the Loughborough University group's 2010 inventory and is an international centre for commerce, finance, culture, entertainment, education and tourism. According to the Mercer cost of living survey, Frankfurt is Germany’s second most expensive city, and the 48th most expensive in the world. Frankfurt also ranks among the top 10 most livable cities in the world according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
