Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Portal:Baden-Württemberg
Introduction
Baden-Württemberg (/ˌbɑːdən ˈvɜːrtəmbɜːrɡ/ BAH-dən VURT-əm-burg, German: [ˌbaːdn̩ ˈvʏʁtəmbɛʁk] ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state (Land) in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a total area of nearly 35,752 km2 (13,804 sq mi), it is the third-largest German state by both area (behind Bavaria and Lower Saxony) and population (behind North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria). As a federated state, Baden-Württemberg is a partly-sovereign parliamentary republic. The largest city in Baden-Württemberg is the state capital of Stuttgart, followed by Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Other major cities are Freiburg im Breisgau, Heidelberg, Heilbronn, Pforzheim, Reutlingen, Tübingen, and Ulm.
What is now Baden-Württemberg was formerly the historical territories of Baden, Prussian Hohenzollern, and Württemberg. Baden-Württemberg became a state of West Germany in April 1952 through the merger of South Baden, Württemberg-Baden, and Württemberg-Hohenzollern. These three states had been artificially created by the Allies after World War II out of the existing traditional states by their separation over different occupation zones.
Baden-Württemberg is especially known for its strong economy with various industries like car manufacturing, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, the service sector, and more. It has the third-highest gross regional product (GRP) in Germany. Part of the Four Motors for Europe and located in the Blue Banana, some of the largest German companies are headquartered in Baden-Württemberg, including Mercedes-Benz Group, Schwarz Group, Porsche, Bosch and SAP.
The sobriquet Ländle, a diminutive of the word Land in the local Swabian, Alemannic and Franconian dialects, is sometimes used as a synonym for Baden-Württemberg. (Full article...)
Selected article
The Danube Sinkhole (German: Donauversinkung or Donauversickerung) is an incipient underground stream capture in the Upper Danube Nature Park. Between Immendingen and Möhringen and also near Fridingen (Tuttlingen), the water of the Danube sinks into the riverbed in various places. The main sinkhole is next to a field named Brühl between Immendingen and Möhringen.
The term “sinking” is more accurate than “seeping”, because, instead of just distributing into the soil, the Danube’s water flows through underground caverns to the Aachtopf, where it emerges as the river Radolfzeller Aach.
The sinking Danube water disappears into a karst water system of the well-stratified limestone formation (the ox2 layer) of the White Jura and appears again in a horizontal limestone layer (the ki4 layer), approximately twelve kilometers away at Aachtopf. It then flows as Radolfzeller Aach into Lake Constance at Radolfzell. Thus, a part of the Danube water also flows into the Rhine. This geographical situation is a striking feature of the large European Watershed, which separates the catchment areas of the North Sea and the Black Sea.
Selected biography
Karl Friedrich Benz (German: [bɛnts] ; November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine, and together with Bertha Benz, pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz received a patent for his work first, and, subsequently patented all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile. In 1879, his first engine patent was granted to him, and in 1886, Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile.
State facts
- Nickname: Ländle
- Capital: Stuttgart
- Minister-president: Winfried Kretschmann
- Governing parties: Greens / CDU
- Total area: 35,751 km2 (13,804 sq mi)
- Population: 10,879,618 (2015)
- Founded: April 25, 1952
- Website: www.baden-wuerttemberg.de
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Did you know?
- ...that the 18th-century Schloss Bruchsal is noted for its fine Roccoco decoration and in particular its grand Baroque entrance staircase, which is regarded as one of the finest examples of its genre.
- ... that the Schwarzwaldverein (Black Forest Association) was founded in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1864, making it the oldest German hiking and mountaineering club. The Schwarzwaldverein has almost 90,000 members in 241 local chapters.
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Maulbronn Monastery (German: Kloster Maulbronn) is a former Roman Catholic Cistercian Abbey and Protestant seminary located at Maulbronn in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The 850 year old, mostly Romanesque monastery complex, one of the best preserved examples of its kind in Europe, is one of the very first buildings in Germany to use the Gothic style. In 1993, the abbey was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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