67 Facts About Munich

1.

Munich is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria.

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2.

Straddling the banks of the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps, Munich is the seat of the Bavarian administrative region of Upper Bavaria, while being the most densely populated municipality in Germany .

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3.

Munich is the second-largest city in the Bavarian dialect area, after the Austrian capital of Vienna.

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4.

Catholic Munich strongly resisted the Reformation and was a political point of divergence during the resulting Thirty Years' War, but remained physically untouched despite an occupation by the Protestant Swedes.

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5.

Once Bavaria was established as a sovereign kingdom in 1806, Munich became a major European centre of arts, architecture, culture and science.

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6.

Today, Munich is a global centre of art, science, technology, finance, publishing, culture, innovation, education, business, and tourism and enjoys a very high standard and quality of living, reaching first in Germany and third worldwide according to the 2018 Mercer survey, and being rated the world's most liveable city by the Monocle's Quality of Life Survey 2018.

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7.

Munich is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in Germany in terms of real estate prices and rental costs.

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8.

Munich's economy is based on high tech, automobiles, the service sector and creative industries, as well as IT, biotechnology, engineering and electronics among many other sectors.

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9.

Munich is one of the most attractive business locations in Germany.

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10.

Origin of the modern city of Munich is the result of a power struggle between a military warlord and an influential Catholic bishop.

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11.

Munich ruled over vast territories in the German Holy Roman Empire from the North and Baltic Sea to the Alps.

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12.

Munich then built a new toll bridge, customs house and a coin market closer to his home downriver .

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13.

Archaeological excavations at Marienhof Square in advance of the expansion of the S-Bahn in 2012 discovered shards of vessels from the 11th century, which prove again that the settlement of Munich must be older than the Augsburg Arbitration of 1158.

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14.

In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, when the Duchy of Bavaria was split in two, Munich became the ducal residence of Upper Bavaria.

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15.

Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328.

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16.

Munich strengthened the city's position by granting it the salt monopoly, thus assuring it of additional income.

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17.

In 1623, during the Thirty Years' War, Munich became an electoral residence when Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria was invested with the electoral dignity, but in 1632 the city was occupied by Gustav II Adolph of Sweden.

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18.

Under the regency of the Bavarian electors, Munich was an important centre of Baroque life, but had to suffer under Habsburg occupations in 1704 and 1742.

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19.

Later, Prince Regent Luitpold's years as regent were marked by tremendous artistic and cultural activity in Munich, enhancing its status as a cultural force of global importance .

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20.

In 1923, Adolf Hitler and his supporters, who were concentrated in Munich, staged the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic and seize power.

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21.

City was the site where the 1938 Munich Agreement signed between Britain and France with Germany as part of the Franco-British policy of appeasement.

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22.

Munich was the base of the White Rose, a student resistance movement from June 1942 to February 1943.

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23.

Since 1963, Munich has been the host city for annual conferences on international security policy.

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24.

Munich became known on the political level due to the strong influence of Bavarian politician Franz Josef Strauss from the 1960s to the 1980s.

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25.

Munich was the site of the 1972 Summer Olympics, during which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich massacre, when gunmen from the Palestinian "Black September" group took hostage members of the Israeli Olympic team.

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26.

Munich is home of the famous Nockherberg Strong Beer Festival during the Lenten fasting period .

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27.

Munich was one of the host cities for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

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28.

Several national and international authorities are located in Munich, including the Federal Finance Court of Germany and the European Patent Office.

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29.

Current mayor of Munich is Dieter Reiter of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, who was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2020.

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30.

Munich has a much stronger left-wing tradition than the rest of the state, which has been dominated by the conservative Christian Social Union in Bavaria on a federal, state, and local level since the establishment of the Federal Republic in 1949.

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31.

Munich is twinned with the following cities : Edinburgh, Scotland, Verona, Italy, Bordeaux, France, Sapporo, Japan, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, Kyiv, Ukraine and Harare, Zimbabwe .

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32.

Since the administrative reform in 1992, Munich is divided into 25 boroughs or Stadtbezirke, which themselves consist of smaller quarters.

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33.

The wealthy district of Bogenhausen in the east of Munich is another little-known area rich in extravagant architecture, especially around Prinzregentenstraße.

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34.

Munich is a densely-built city but has numerous public parks.

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35.

Munich is home to several professional football teams including Bayern Munich, Germany's most successful club and a multiple UEFA Champions League winner.

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36.

FC Bayern Munich Basketball is currently playing in the Beko Basket Bundesliga.

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37.

Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics; the Munich Massacre took place in the Olympic village.

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38.

Public sporting facilities in Munich include ten indoor swimming pools and eight outdoor swimming pools, which are operated by the Munich City Utilities communal company.

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39.

Munich has a reputation as a surfing hotspot, offering the world's best known river surfing spot, the Eisbach wave, which is located at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten park and used by surfers day and night and throughout the year.

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40.

Munich is a major international cultural centre and has played host to many prominent composers including Orlando di Lasso, W A Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Max Reger and Carl Orff.

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41.

Some of classical music's best-known pieces have been created in and around Munich by composers born in the area, for example, Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra or Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

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42.

Furthermore, Munich was the centre of Krautrock in southern Germany, with many important bands such as Amon Duul II, Embryo or Popol Vuh hailing from the city.

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43.

Munich played a significant role in the development of electronic music, with genre pioneer Giorgio Moroder, who invented synth disco and electronic dance music, and Donna Summer, one of disco music's most important performers, both living and working in the city.

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44.

Munich had already become an important place for painters like Carl Rottmann, Lovis Corinth, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Carl Spitzweg, Franz von Lenbach, Franz von Stuck, Karl Piloty and Wilhelm Leibl when Der Blaue Reiter, a group of expressionist artists, was established in Munich in 1911.

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45.

Munich was home to many of the most important authors of the New German Cinema movement, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Edgar Reitz and Herbert Achternbusch.

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46.

Munich served as the location for many of Fassbinder's films, among them Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

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47.

Munich remains one of the centres of the German film and entertainment industry.

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48.

Munich offers 11 restaurants that have been awarded one or more Michelin stars in the Michelin Guide of 2021.

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49.

Munich is known for its breweries and the Weissbier is a speciality from Bavaria.

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50.

Nightlife in Munich is located mostly in the city centre and the boroughs Maxvorstadt, Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, Au-Haidhausen and Schwabing.

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51.

From 1995 to 2001, Munich was home to the Union Move, one of the largest technoparades in Germany.

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52.

Munich has two directly connected gay quarters, which basically can be seen as one: Gartnerplatzviertel and Glockenbachviertel, both part of the Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt district.

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53.

Munich has the highest density of music venues of any German city, followed by Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin.

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54.

Munich is a leading location for science and research with a long list of Nobel Prize laureates from Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in 1901 to Theodor Hansch in 2005.

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55.

Munich has become a spiritual centre already since the times of Emperor Louis IV when philosophers like Michael of Cesena, Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham were protected at the emperor's court.

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56.

Munich topped the ranking of the magazine Capital in February 2005 for the economic prospects between 2002 and 2011 in 60 German cities.

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57.

Munich is a financial center and global city that holds the headquarters of many companies.

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58.

Munich is a centre for biotechnology, software and other service industries.

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59.

Furthermore, Munich is the home of the headquarters of many other large companies such as the injection moulding machine manufacturer Krauss-Maffei, the camera and lighting manufacturer Arri, the semiconductor firm Infineon Technologies, lighting giant Osram, as well as the German or European headquarters of many foreign companies such as Microsoft.

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60.

Munich has significance as a financial centre, being home of HypoVereinsbank and the Bayerische Landesbank.

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61.

Munich is the largest publishing city in Europe and home to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's biggest daily newspapers.

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62.

Munich enjoys a thriving economy, driven by the information technology, biotechnology, and publishing sectors.

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63.

Munich has an extensive public transport system consisting of an underground metro, trams, buses and high-speed rail.

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64.

In 2015, the transport modal share in Munich was 38 percent public transport, 25 percent car, 23 percent walking, and 15 percent bicycle.

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65.

The Munich tramway is the oldest existing public transportation system in the city, which has been in operation since 1876.

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66.

Munich is an integral part of the motorway network of southern Germany.

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67.

Motorways from Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Berlin, Deggendorf and Passau, Salzburg and Innsbruck, Garmisch Partenkirchen and Lindau terminate at Munich, allowing direct access to the different parts of Germany, Austria and Italy.

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