Hanover | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 525875 |
Hanover (; German: Hannover [haˈnoːfɐ] (listen); Low German: Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,061 (2017) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the third-largest city in Northern Germany after Hamburg and Bremen. Hanover's urban area comprises the towns of Garbsen, Langenhagen and Laatzen and has a population of about 791,000 (2018). The Hanover Region has approximately 1.16 million inhabitants (2019).The city lies at the confluence of the River Leine (progression: Aller→ Weser→ North Sea) and its tributary Ihme, in the south of the North German Plain, and is the largest city in the Hannover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region. It is the fifth-largest city in the Low German dialect area after Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen and Bremen.
Before it became the capital of Lower Saxony in 1946, Hanover was the capital of the Principality of Calenberg (1636–1692), the Electorate of Hanover (1692–1814), the Kingdom of Hanover (1814–1866), the Province of Hanover of the Kingdom of Prussia (1868–1918), the Province of Hanover of the Free State of Prussia (1918–1946) and of the State of Hanover (1946). From 1714 to 1837 Hanover was by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, under their title of the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg (later described as the Elector of Hanover).
The city is a major crossing point of railway lines and motorways (Autobahnen), connecting European main lines in both the east-west (Berlin–Ruhr area/Düsseldorf/Cologne) and north-south (Hamburg–Frankfurt/Stuttgart/Munich) directions.
Mannheim | |
---|---|
State | |
Country | |
Capital | |
Population | 0 |
Mannheim (German pronunciation: [ˈmanhaɪm] (listen); Palatine German: Mannem or Monnem) is a Universitätsstadt (university town) in the southwestern part of Germany and the third-largest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart and Karlsruhe with a 2019 population of approximately 310,700 inhabitants. The city is at the centre of the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region and is Germany's eighth-largest metropolitan region.
Mannheim is located at the confluence of the Rhine and the Neckar in the northwestern corner of Baden-Württemberg. The Rhine separates Mannheim from the city of Ludwigshafen, just to the west of it in Rhineland-Palatinate, and the border of Baden-Württemberg with Hesse is just to the north. Mannheim is downstream along the Neckar from the city of Heidelberg.
Mannheim is unusual among German cities in that its streets and avenues are laid out in a grid pattern, leading to its nickname "die Quadratestadt" (the Square City). The eighteenth century Mannheim Palace, former home of the Prince-elector of the Palatinate, now houses the University of Mannheim.