Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

Industrial heritage | Science and culture | Transport history

🇩🇪 Halle (Saale), or simply Halle is the largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the fifth most populous city in the area of former East Germany, as well as the 31st largest city of Germany. Together with Leipzig, Halle forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle conurbation. Between the two cities, in Schkeuditz, lies Leipzig/Halle International Airport. The Leipzig-Halle conurbation is at the heart of the larger Central German Metropolitan Region.

Halle lies in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, in the Leipzig Bay, the southernmost part of the North German Plain, on the River Saale (a tributary of the Elbe), which is the third longest river flowing entirely in Germany after the Weser and the Main. The White Elster flows into the Saale in the southern borough of Silberhöhe. Halle is the fourth largest city in the Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect area after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz.

Halle is an economic and educational centre in central-eastern Germany. The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, with campuses in Halle and Wittenberg, is the largest university in Saxony-Anhalt, one of the oldest universities in Germany, and a nurturing ground for the local start-up ecosystem. The university hospital of Halle, Universitätsklinikum Halle (Saale), is the largest hospital in the state.

Industrial heritage Salt, also known as white gold, was extracted from four "Borns" (well-like structures). The four Borns/brine named Gutjahrbrunnen, Meteritzbrunnen, Deutscher Born and Hackeborn, were located around the Hallmarket (or "Under Market"), now a market square with a fountain, just across from the TV station, MDR. The brine was highly concentrated and boiled in Koten, simple structured houses made from reed and clay. Salters, who wore a unique uniform with eighteen silver buttons, were known as Halloren, and this name was later used for the chocolates in the shape of these buttons.

The Halloren-Werke, the oldest chocolate factory in Germany, was founded in 1804. Old documents are on display and a chocolate room can be visited.

Within East Germany, Halle's chemical industry, now mainly shut down, was of great importance. The two main companies in the region were Buna-Werke and Leuna, and Halle-Neustadt was built in the 1960s to accommodate the employees of these two factories.

Science and culture Baroque composer Georg Friedrich Händel (later George Frideric Handel) was born in Halle in 1685 and spent the first 17 years of his life in the city. The house where he lived is now a museum about his life. To celebrate his music, Halle has staged a Handel Festival since 1922, annually in June since 1952. The Franckesche Stiftungen (Francke Foundations) are home to the Stadtsingechor zu Halle which was founded before the year 1116 and is one of the oldest boys' choirs in the world.

The University of Halle was founded here in 1694. It is now combined with the University of Wittenberg and called the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. The university's medical school was established by Friedrich Hoffmann. Its botanical garden, the Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, dates back to 1698. Halle's German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is the oldest and one of the most respected scientific societies in Germany. Halle is also home to Germany's oldest Protestant church library, known as the Marienbibliothek with 27,000 titles. The seat of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, one of the world's largest social anthropological research institutions and a part of the Max Planck Society, is in Halle.

Halle was a centre of German Pietism and played an important role in establishing the Lutheran church in North America, when Henry Muhlenberg and others were sent as missionaries to Pennsylvania in the mid-18th century. Muhlenberg is now called the first Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America. He and his son, Frederick Muhlenberg, who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, were graduates of Halle University.

The Silver Treasure of the Halloren is displayed occasionally at the Technical Museum Saline. It is a unique collection of silver and gold goblets dating back to 1266. The ancient craft of "Schausieden" (boiling of the brine) can be observed there too. The State Museum of Prehistory houses the Nebra sky disk, a significant (though unproven) Bronze-Age find with astronomical significance.

Halle Zoo contributes to the EAZA breeding programme, in particular for the Angolan lion and the Malaysian tiger. Halle is also known for its thriving coypu (or nutria) population, which is native to South America.

With writers such as Heine, Eichendorff, Schleiermacher, Tieck and Novalis the town was a vibrant scene of the German Romanticism. Also Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a regular guest at the house of his close friend Johann Friedrich Reichardt.

German-American expressionist painter Lyonel Feininger worked in Halle on an invitation by the city from 1929 to 1931. As one of eleven views of the city termed Halle Cycle, he painted in 1931 Die Türme über der Stadt (The towers above the city), which is now in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. This painting appeared on a 55 eurocent stamp on 5 December 2002 as a part of the series “Deutsche Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts” (German painting of the 20th century).

Transport history Ludwig Wucherer made Halle an important rail hub in central Germany. In 1840 he opened the Magdeburg-Halle-Leipzig line, completing a connection between Magdeburg and Dresden. In 1841–1860, other lines to Erfurt, Kassel and Berlin followed.

The centrepiece of Halle's urban public transport system is the Halle (Saale) tramway network. It includes the world's first major electric-powered inner-city tram line, which was opened in 1891. Halle (Saale) Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station.

Halle's prominence as a railway centre grew with the arrival of the Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle high-speed railway. Leipzig is also connected to this route, but since it is a terminus station (though the Leipzig City Tunnel is currently under construction, the route will be shared with S-Bahn trains, making it unlikely that it will be used as a through station for Berlin-Munich trains), Halle is more likely to be used as an intermediate stop for Berlin-Munich trains. The completion of the Nuremberg–Erfurt high-speed railway also provided a further impetus to use the route.

Leipzig/Halle Airport (opened in 1927) is an international airport located in Schkeuditz, Saxony, and serves both Leipzig, Saxony, and Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. As of 2018 it is Germany's 11th largest airport by passengers, handling more than 2.57 million mainly with flights to European leisure destinations. In terms of cargo traffic, the airport is the fifth-busiest in Europe and the second-busiest in Germany after Frankfurt Airport.

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany 
<b>Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany</b>
Image: Adobe Stock sehbaer_nrw #314837112

Halle has a population of over 236,991 people. Halle also forms part of the wider Central German metropolitan area which has a population of over 4,360,000 people. Halle is the #305 hipster city in the world, with a hipster score of 2.603 according to the Hipster Index which evaluates and ranks the major cities of the world according to the number of vegan eateries, coffee shops, tattoo studios, vintage boutiques, and record stores. For the location of Halle see: Halle (Saale).

To set up a UBI Lab for Halle see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license | Hipster Index

Antipodal to Halle is: -168.025,-51.482

Locations Near: Halle 11.9751,51.482

🇩🇪 Halle (Saale) 11.967,51.467 d: 1.8  

🇩🇪 Merseburg 11.983,51.35 d: 14.7  

🇩🇪 Köthen 11.917,51.75 d: 30.1  

🇩🇪 Weißenfels 11.967,51.2 d: 31.4  

🇩🇪 Naumburg 11.817,51.15 d: 38.5  

🇩🇪 Bitterfeld-Wolfen 12.328,51.623 d: 29  

🇩🇪 Bernburg 11.733,51.8 d: 39.1  

🇩🇪 Leipzig 12.373,51.336 d: 32  

🇩🇪 Dessau 12.25,51.833 d: 43.4  

🇩🇪 Dessau-Roßlau 12.245,51.839 d: 43.8  

Antipodal to: Halle -168.025,-51.482

🇹🇴 Nuku'alofa -175.216,-21.136 d: 16583.6  

🇦🇸 Pago Pago -170.701,-14.279 d: 15871.4  

🇼🇸 Apia -171.76,-13.833 d: 15815.3  

🇵🇫 Papeete -149.566,-17.537 d: 15905  

🇺🇸 Hilo -155.089,19.725 d: 11997.3  

🇺🇸 Maui -156.446,20.72 d: 11907.4  

🇺🇸 Maui County -156.617,20.868 d: 11893.5  

🇺🇸 Wailuku -156.505,20.894 d: 11889.1  

🇺🇸 Kahului -156.466,20.891 d: 11888.8  

🇺🇸 Honolulu -157.85,21.3 d: 11861.3  

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