Honorary twin cities

Frankfurt, the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, is the centre of the Frankfurt Rhine Main metropolitan region with a population of several million. Frankfurt may be proud of its centuries-old scientific and cultural tradition and equally interesting history. It was the place of the election and coronation of German kings and emperors. It was in Frankfurt that in 1848 the first democratically elected parliament worked on the unification of Germany creating foundations for the Constitution of the Weimar Republic of 1919. Today's Frankfurt is an important educational centre (with, among others, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, the first German university established in 1914 not by the state but by citizens themselves; it is also the seat of the German National Library) and a strategic hub on the European and world scale (massive international airport), important centre of international fairs and one of the most important world financial centres. The city is the seat of over 200 banks, including the most important German and world banks (e.g. the European Central Bank) as well as the seat of various financial institutions and a famous stock exchange.