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Frankfurt am Main (help·info) (German: [„f-a-kf--t“], English: [„f-æ-kf-“t]) is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2008 population of 670,000. The urban area had an estimated population of 2.26 million in 2001.[1] The city is at the centre of the larger Frankfurt Rhine Main Region which has a population of 5.3 million and is Germany's second largest metropolitan area. In English, this city's name translate as "Frankfurt on the Main". A large early tribe in the area was the Franks and in German "Furt" means a river crossing. Thus, in medieval times, "Frankfurt" meant the Franks' river crossing.
Situated on the Main River, Frankfurt is the financial and transportation centre of Germany and the largest financial centre in continental Europe.It is the place of residence of the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Trade Fair, as well as several large commercial banks. Frankfurt International Airport is one of the world's busiest airports, Frankfurt Central Station is one of the largest terminal stations in Europe, and the Frankfurter Kreuz (Autobahn interchange) is the most heavily used interchange in continental Europe. Frankfurt is the only German city listed as one of ten Alpha world cities.[2] Frankfurt lies in the former American Occupation Zone of Germany, and it was formerly the headquarters city of the U.S. Army in Germany, but what is left of that organization has moved out of Frankfurt to some more remote location.
Among English speakers the city is commonly known simply as "Frankfurt", though Germans occasionally call it by its full name when it is necessary to distinguish it from the other (significantly smaller) "Frankfurt" in the state of Brandenburg, Frankfurt (Oder).
Overview
The three pillars of Frankfurt's economy are finance, transport, and trade fairs. Frankfurt has been Germany's financial centre for centuries, and it is the home of a number of major banks and brokerages. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is by far Germany's largest, and is one of the world's most important. Frankfurt is also the seat of the European Central Bank which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone economy, and of the German Federal Bank. Over 300 national and international banks are represented including the headquarters of the major German banks.
Frankfurt has an excellent transportation infrastructure, and the Frankfurt International Airport is a major European aviation hub. Its central location at the heart of Europe and its excellent accessibility by air, rail and road make Frankfurt Airport City especially attractive.
In addition, many large trade fairs are held in Frankfurt each year, notably the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung, the world's largest motor show, and the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world's largest book fair.
Frankfurt is also home to many cultural and educational institutions including the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, many museums and a large botanical garden, the Palmengarten. Frankfurt's second major university, Business School of Finance and Management, focuses on finance.
Frankfurt is one of only four European cities that have a significant number of skyscrapers. With ten skyscrapers (i.e. buildings taller than 150 m (492 ft)) in 2004, Frankfurt is second behind Paris with twelve skyscrapers, but ahead of London with eight skyscrapers and Moscow with seven skyscrapers. The city of Frankfurt contains the two tallest skyscrapers in the European Union, the Commerzbank Tower and Messeturm, which rank third and fourth on the continent after the Naberezhnaya Tower and the Triumph-Palace in Moscow.
Panorama of Frankfurt seen from the Maintower observation deck
History
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In the area of the Römer, Roman settlements were established, probably in the 1st century; some artifacts from that era are found even to this day. The city district Bonames has a name probably dating back to Roman times-it is thought to be derived from bona me(n)sa. Nida (Heddernheim) was also a Roman civitas capital.
The name of Frankfurt on Main is derived from the Franconofurd of the Germanic tribe of the Franks; Furt (cf. English ford) where the river was shallow enough to be crossed by wading. Alemanni and Franks lived there and by 794 Charlemagne presided over an imperial assembly and church synod, at which Franconofurd (-furt -vurd) was first mentioned.
Frankfurt was one of the most important cities in the Holy Roman Empire. From 855 the German kings and emperors were elected in Frankfurt and crowned in Aachen. From 1562 the kings/emperors were also crowned in Frankfurt, Maximilian II being the first. This tradition ended in 1792, when Franz II was elected. His coronation was deliberately held on Bastille Day, 14 July, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The elections and coronations took place in St. Bartholomäus cathedral, known as the Kaiserdom (en: Emperor's Cathedral), or in its predecessors.
The Frankfurter Messe (Frankfurt Trade Fair) was first mentioned in 1150. In 1240, Emperor Friedrich II granted an Imperial privilege to its visitors, meaning they would be protected by the Empire. Book trade fairs have been held in Frankfurt since 1478.
In 1372 Frankfurt became a Reichsstadt (en:Imperial city), i.e. directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor and not to a regional ruler or a local nobleman.
Frankfurt managed to remain neutral during the Thirty Years' War, but suffered from the bubonic plague that was brought to the city by refugees. After the end of the war, Frankfurt regained its wealth.
In the Napoleonic Wars Frankfurt was occupied or bombarded several times by French troops. It nevertheless still remained a free city until the total collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805/6. In 1806 it become part of the principality of Aschaffenburg under the Fürstprimas (Prince-Primate), Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg. This also meant that Frankfurt was incorporated into the confederation of the Rhine. In 1810 Dalberg adopted the title of a Grand Duke of Frankfurt. Napoleon intended to make his adopted son Eugène de Beauharnais, already Prince de Venise ("prince of Venice", a newly established primogeniture in Italy), Grand Duke of Frankfurt after Dalberg's death (since the latter as a Catholic bishop had no legitimate heirs). The Grand Duchy remained a short episode lasting from 1810 to 1813, when the military tide turned in favor of the Anglo-Prussian lead allies, which overturned the Napoleonic order of central Europe. Dalberg abdicated in favor of Eugène de Beauharnais, which of course was only a symbolic action, as the latter effectively never did rule after the ruin of the French armies and Frankfurt being taken by the allies.
After Napoleon's final defeat and abdication, the Congress of Vienna (1812-1815, redrawing the map of Europe) dissolved the grand-duchy, and Frankfurt entered the newly founded German Confederation (till 1866) as a free city, becoming the seat of its Bundestag, the confederal parliament where the nominally presiding Habsburg Emperor of Austria was represented by an Austrian "presidential envoy".
The Frankfurt Parliament at St. Paul's Church in 1848
After the ill-fated revolution of 1848, Frankfurt was the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the Frankfurter Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) and was opened on 18 May 1848. The institution failed in 1849 when the Prussian king declared that he would not accept "a crown from the gutter". In the year of its existence, the assembly developed a common constitution for a unified Germany, with the Prussian king as its monarch.
Frankfurt lost its independence after the Austro-Prussian War as Prussia in 1866 annexed several smaller states, among them the free city of Frankfurt. The Prussian administration incorporated Frankfurt into its province of Hesse-Nassau. The formerly independent towns of Bornheim and Bockenheim were incorporated in 1890.
In 1914 the citizens of Frankfurt founded the University of Frankfurt, later called Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. This is the only civic foundation of a university in Germany; today it is one of Germany's largest universities.
After World War I, Frankfurt was occupied by French troops in reprisal for having violated, from the French viewpoint, some details of the peace treaty of Versailles concerning the demilitarisation of the Rhineland.[need quote] In 1924 Ludwig Landmann became the first Jewish Mayor of the city, and led a significant expansion during the following years. However, during the Nazi era, the synagogues of Frankfurt were destroyed.
Aerial view of the cathedral in May 1945 after World War II
The city of Frankfurt was severely bombed in World War II (1939-1945). About 5,500 residents were killed during the raids, and the once famous medieval city centre, by that time the largest in Germany, was destroyed. Post-war reconstruction took place in a sometimes simple modern style, thus irrevocably changing the architectural face of Frankfurt. Only very few landmark buildings have been reconstructed historically, albeit in a simplified manner.
After the end of the war, Frankfurt became a part of the newly founded state of Hesse, consisting of the old Hesse-(Darmstadt) and the Prussian Hesse provinces. The city was part of the American Zone of Occupation of Germany. The Military Governor for the United States Zone (1945-1949) and the United States High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG) (1949-1952) had their headquarters in the IG Farben Building, intentionally left undamaged by the Allies' wartime bombardment. Frankfurt was the original choice for the provisional capital of West Germany-they even went as far as constructing a new parliament building that has never been used for its intended purpose. Since 1949 it is used to house the radio studios of Hessische Rundfunk. In the end, Konrad Adenauer (the first post-war Chancellor) preferred the tiny city of Bonn, for the most part because it was close to his hometown, but also for another reason; many other prominent politicians opposed the choice of Frankfurt out of concern that Frankfurt, one of the largest German cities and a former centre of the old German-dominated Holy Roman Empire, would be accepted as a "permanent" capital of Germany, thereby weakening the West German population's support for reunification and the eventual return of the Government to Berlin.
Reconstruction (1981-1984) of six houses at the east side of the Römerberg that were destroyed in World War II
During the 1970s, the city created one of Europe's most efficient underground transportation systems. That system includes a suburban rail system (S-Bahn) capable of reaching outlying communities as well as the city centre, and a deep underground light rail system with smaller coaches (U-Bahn) also capable of travelling above ground on street rails.
Since the postwar period Frankfurt has emerged once again as the financial and transportation centre of Germany.
Population
Frankfurt is a multicultural city. Most immigrants are from Turkey, Albania, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Spain, North African countries, Iran, Lebanon, and the United States. The Frankfurt Area is also home to the (now 2nd) largest Korean community in Europe, and 180 different nationalities reside in Frankfurt.
For a long time Frankfurt was a Protestant-dominated city. However, during the 19th century an increasing number of Catholics moved to the city. Today a small majority of its citizens are Catholic. According to the Central Council of Jews in Germany, there are 7,300 Jews affiliated with Judaism in Frankfurt, giving it the second largest Jewish community (behind Berlin) in Germany.
Cuisine
Frankfurt cuisine is well known for Frankfurt Sausages. They are usually pink colored and are usually sold in packages with water.
Geography
Frankfurt as the centre of the Rhine Main Region
The 16 Ortsbezirke (area districts) of Frankfurt
Geographic location
The city is located on both sides of the River Main in the south-west part of Germany. The southern part of the city contains the Frankfurt City Forest (Frankfurter Stadtwald), Germany's largest forest within a city. The center of Frankfurt is located on the north side of the river.
Neighbouring communities and areas
To the west, Frankfurt borders the Main-Taunus-Kreis (Hattersheim am Main, Kriftel, Hofheim am Taunus, Kelkheim (Taunus), Liederbach am Taunus, Sulzbach (Taunus), Schwalbach am Taunus and Eschborn); to the northwest the Hochtaunuskreis (Steinbach (Taunus), Oberursel (Taunus), and Bad Homburg); to the north the Wetteraukreis (Karben and Bad Vilbel); to the northeast the Main-Kinzig-Kreis (Niederdorfelden and Maintal); to the southeast the city of Offenbach am Main; to the south the Kreis Offenbach (Neu-Isenburg) and to the southwest the Kreis Groß-Gerau (Mörfelden-Walldorf, Rüsselsheim and Kelsterbach).
City divisions and districts
The city is divided into 46 Stadtteile or Ortsteile which are again divided into 118 Stadtbezirke. The largest Ortsteil is Sachsenhausen-Süd. Most Stadtteile are incorporated suburbs (Vororte), or previously separate cities, like Höchst. Some like Nordend arose during the rapid growth of the city in the Gründerzeit following the unification of Germany. Others were formed from settlements which previously belonged to other city divisions, like Dornbusch.
The 46 city divisions are combined into 16 area districts or Ortsbezirke, which each have a district committee and chairperson.
History of incorporation
Until the middle of the 19th century, the city territory of Frankfurt consisted of the present-day Stadtteile of Altstadt, Innenstadt, Bahnhofsviertel, Gutleutviertel, Gallus, Westend, Nordend, Ostend, Riederwald and Sachsenhausen. After 1877, a number of previously independent areas were incorporated into the city, see list of current districts of the city.
Main sights
St. Bartholomeus' Cathedral
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The old opera house, now a concert hall
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The financial district (back) and Hauptwache (front)
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Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral
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Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral (Dom Sankt Bartholomäus) is a Gothic building which was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries on the foundation of an earlier church from the Merovingian time. It is the main church of Frankfurt. From 1356 onwards, kings of the Holy Roman Empire were elected in this church, and from 1562 to 1792, emperors were crowned here.
Since the 18th century, Saint Bartholomeus' has been called "the cathedral" by the people, although it has never been a bishop's seat. In 1867, the cathedral was destroyed by a fire and rebuilt in its present style. The height of the cathedral is 95 m.
Roemer
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The name of the city hall means "Roman". In fact, nine houses were acquired by the city council in 1405 from a wealthy merchant family. The middle house became the town hall and was later connected with the neighbouring buildings. In the upper floor, there is the Kaisersaal ("Emperor's Hall") where the newly crowned emperors held their banquets. The Römer was partially destroyed in World War II and later rebuilt. It is located at the Römerberg (city hall square).
Saint Paul's Church
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St. Paul's Church (Paulskirche) is a national historic monument in Germany with great political symbolism, because it was the seat of the first democratically elected Parliament in 1848. It was established in 1789 as a Protestant church but was not completed until 1833. Its importance has its root in the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the church during the revolutionary years of 1848/49 in order to write a constitution for a united Germany. The attempt failed because the monarchs of Prussia and Austria did not want to lose power, and in 1849 Prussian troops ended the democratic experiment by force of arms and the parliament was dissolved. Afterwards, the building was used for church services again.
St. Paul's was partially destroyed in World War II, particularly the interior of the building, which now has a modern appearance. It was quickly and symbolically rebuilt after the war; today it is not used for religious services, but mainly for exhibitions and events.
Old Opera House
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The famous old opera house (Alte Oper) was built in 1880 by the architect Richard Lucae. It was one of the major opera houses in Germany until it was heavily damaged in World War II. Until the late 1970s it was a ruin, nicknamed "Germany's Most Beautiful Ruin". There were even efforts to just blow it up. Former Frankfurt Lord Mayor Rudi Arndt called for blowing it up in the 1960s, which earned him the nicknamed "Dynamite-Rudi". (Later on, Arndt said he never had meant his suggestion seriously.)
Fortunately, due to public pressure, it was finally fully reconstructed and reopened in 1981. Today it functions as a concert hall, while operas are performed in the Oper Frankfurt.
The inscription on the frieze of the Old Opera says: "Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten" ("To the true, the beautiful, the good").
Frankfurt Opera House
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The Frankfurt Opera is a leading opera company in Germany and one of the most important opera houses in Europe. It was elected "Opera house of the year" by German magazine Opernwelt in 1995 and 2003.
Saint Katherine's Church
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St. Katherine's church is the largest evangelical (Lutheran) church in Frankfurt. It is located in the city centre at the entrance to the Zeil.
Hauptwache
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The Hauptwache (Main Watch) is a baroque building built in 1730, formerly used as a prison. It has given its name to the surrounding square and the transport hub beneath it. It is situated at one end of the Zeil, the city's main retail street.
Zeil
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The Zeil is Frankfurt's main shopping street and one of the most crowded in Germany. The street is a pedestrian-only area and is bordered by two large plazas, Hauptwache in the west and Konstablerwache in the east. It is the second most expensive street for shops to rent in Germany after the Kaufingerstraße in Munich.
20th-century architecture
- Frauenfriedenskirche, consecrated 1929, example of early modernist church building
- Grossmarkthalle, built 1926-1928, former wholesale market, future European Central Bank headquarters
- IG Farben Building, built 1928-1930, now housing the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University
- Goethe House, rebuilt in 1947. The birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from 1749 was destroyed in World War II and then rebuilt true to the original. The Goethe Museum is next door.
- Museum für angewandte Kunst, built 1985, designed by Richard Meier
Skyscrapers
Frankfurt is the only German city with a significant number of skyscrapers, meaning buildings at least 150 meters tall. There are ten buildings, with two more (Opernturm, 170 m and Tower 185, 185 m) currently under construction. Only Bonn has also one building (Post Tower, 163 m) over 150 m. Most of the skyscrapers in Frankfurt are located in the western part of the city centre known as Bankenviertel. The tallest skyscrapers in Frankfurt are:
- Commerzbank Tower, 259 m - Europe's tallest building (1997-2003), Headquarters of Commerzbank.
- MesseTurm, 257 m - Europe's tallest building (1990-1997).
- Westendstraße 1, 208 m - Headquarters of DZ Bank.
- Maintower, 200 m - Headquarters of Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen with an observation deck open to the public.
- Trianon, 186 m - Headquarters of DekaBank.
- Silver Tower, 166 m - Germany's tallest building (1978-1990), Headquarters of Dresdner Bank.
- Plaza Büro Center, 159 m - Germany's tallest building (1976-1978).
- Deutsche Bank I, 155 m - Headquarters of Deutsche Bank.
- Deutsche Bank II, 155 m - Headquarters of Deutsche Bank.
- Skyper, 154 m.
Other tall structures
- Europaturm - The Europe Tower is a telecommunication tower known as the Frankfurt TV Tower. It is the tallest tower in the city with a height of 337.5 meters. It was open to the public until 1999, with an entertainment establishment in the revolving top. It is normally referred to by the locals as "Ginnheimer Spargel" (The Ginnheimer Asparagus) which is not correct because it is not located in the Ginnheim district but stands a few meters within the Bockenheim district.
- Henninger Turm - The Henninger Tower is a 120-meter high grain silo built from 1959-1961 and owned by Henninger Brewery. It has two rotating restaurants at the height of 101 and 106 meters and an open-air observation deck at the height of 110 metres. The tower has been closed to the public since October 2002. Plans to destroy the tower and replace it were abandoned. Today there are new plans to convert it into a residential tower.
- Goetheturm - The Goethe Tower is a 43-meter high tower built entirely out of wood on the northern edge of the Frankfurt City Forest in Sachsenhausen. It is the fifth tallest wooden construction in Germany. It was built in 1931 and is still a popular place for day-trippers, especially families, as a large playground and a café have been built at the foot of the tower.
Culture
The Museumsuferfest in 2005
Festivals
A major festival in the city is the Museumsuferfest (Museums Riverbank Festival). It is one of the biggest cultural festivals in Germany which attracts more than 3 million visitors over a period of 3 days. It takes place yearly at the end of August on both sides of the Main Riverbank in the city centre. More than 20 museums are located there and they are open far into the night. Furthermore there are special attractions like live-bands, dance shows, several booths for crafts, jewelry, clothes and food from all around the world. It ends with a spectacular firework display .
Frankfurt's oldest folk festival is the Dippemess (Festival of Stoneware) which takes place twice a year around Easter and the end of September in the eastern part of the city. Mentioned for the first time in the 14th century as an annual marketplace it is now more of an amusement park. ("Dippe" is a regional hessian dialect word meaning "pot" or "jar" and which would not be understood in most other German regions. The name of the festival derives from its original purpose, when it was a fair where traditionally crafted jars, pots and other stoneware were offered)
The Frankfurt Wäldchestag (Woods Day) is jocularly known as a regional holiday because until the 1990s it was common that Frankfurts shops were closed on this day. Despite the name the festival takes place over a period of four days after Pentecost with the actual Wäldchestag being Tuesday. What is special about this festival is its location in Frankfurt's city forest, south of the city centre in Niederrad.
The Wolkenkratzer Festival (Skyscraper Festival) is unique in Germany. It takes place irregularly, the last time in May 2007. For two days most of the skyscrapers in downtown Frankfurt are open to the public, which is normally not the case, apart from the Maintower observation deck. Around 1,2 million visitors took the opportunity to see the city from above. Sky-divers, base jumpers, fireworks and laser shows were extra attractions. The next festival will not be held before 2010.
The Sound of Frankfurt is a music festival held in the city centre. It took place regularly from 1994 to 2004 and is planned again for the summer of 2008. Various artists and bands performed open air and for free on eight stages located mainly around the Zeil. Different types of music (rock, Latino, house, alternative and pop) attracted about 500,000 visitors each year.
Foreign Culture
Museums
Schirn Art Gallery from above
Most of the museums in Frankfurt are located on both sides of the River Main in Sachsenhausen (south side) and in the old part of the city centre (north side). The area is therefore known as Museumsufer (Museums Riverbank).
There are 13 museums on the south side between Eiserner Steg and Friedensbrücke, including:
The street itself, Schaumainkai, is partially closed to traffic on Saturdays for Frankfurt's largest flea market.
There are 2 museums on the north side:
Not directly located on the Riverbank are:
Another important museum is located in the Westend area:
Culinary specialties
Dance music
The roots of trance music can be traced back to Germany, and in particular, Frankfurt. It was here, in the early 1990s, that local DJs like Sven Väth and DJ DAG (of Dance 2 Trance) first played a harder, deeper style of acid house, that became hugely popular worldwide, during the next decade. One of the main venues of the early Trance music sound was the Omen nightclub, in the city. Accordingly, some of the early, and most influential Trance acts, e.g. Jam and Spoon, Dance 2 Trance,Oliver Lieb and Hardfloor, and record labels such as Harthouse and Eye Q were based in the city, in the early 1990s.
Transport
Frankfurt International Airport
The Zeil, the main shopping street
Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Central station)
S-Bahn at Central Station
Tram at Frankfurt South Station
Airports
The city is accessed from around the world via the Frankfurt International Airport (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) which is located 12 km (7 mi) from the city centre. The airport has three runways and serves 265 non-stop destinations. It ranks among the world's top ten airports and is the biggest cargo airport in Europe. Depending on whether total passengers or flights are used, it ranks as the second or third busiest in Europe alongside London Heathrow Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Passenger traffic at Frankfurt Airport in 2007 was 54.2 million. The airport can be reached by car or bus and has two train stations, one for regional and one for long-distance traffic. The S-Bahn lines S8 and S9 (direction "Frankfurt (Main) Hbf", "Offenbach Ost or "Hanau"), departing at the regional traffic station take 10-15 minutes from the airport to the Central Station and the city centre, the IC and ICE trains departing at the long-distance traffic station take as well 10-15 minutes.
Despite the name, Frankfurt Hahn Airport (Flughafen Frankfurt-Hahn) is not located anywhere near Frankfurt but is instead situated approximately 120 km (75 mi) from the city in Lautzenhausen (Rhineland-Palatinate). This airport can only be reached by car or bus. An hourly bus service runs from Frankfurt Central Station, taking about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Last year over 4 Million Passengers used this airport in order to use Low Cost Airlines like Ryanair.
Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport is a busy general aviation airport located south-east of Frankfurt International Airport, near the town of Egelsbach.
Roads
The streets of central Frankfurt are usually congested with cars during the rush hour. Some areas, especially around the shopping streets Zeil, are pedestrian-only streets. There are numerous car parks located throughout the city.
Frankfurt is a traffic hub of the German Autobahn system. The Frankfurter Kreuz is an Autobahn interchange close by the airport where the Autobahnen A 3 (Cologne-Würzburg) and A 5 (Basel-Hannover) meet. With approximately 320,000 cars daily it is the most heavily used interchange in Europe. The A 66 connects Frankfurt with Wiesbaden in the west and Fulda in the east. The A 661 starts in the south (Darmstadt), runs through the eastern part of Frankfurt and ends in the north (Bad Homburg). The A 648 is a very short Autobahn in the western part of Frankfurt.
Railway stations
Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (or short Ffm Hbf) is the largest train station in Germany by number of platforms and railway traffic. Regarding daily passenger volume it ranks second together with München Hauptbahnhof (350,000 each) after Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (450,000). It is located between the Gallus and the Bahnhofsviertel, not far away from the Trade Fair and the financial district (Bankenviertel). It serves as a major hub for long-distance trains (ICE) and regional trains (all Rhine-Main S-Bahn lines, two U-Bahn lines, several tram and bus lines). Local trains are integrated in the Public transport system Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV), the second largest integrated public transport systems in the world. Only the Berlin integrated public transport system (VBB) is larger.
Frankfurt Airport Long Distance Station connects Frankfurt International Airport to the main rail network, most of the ICE services using the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line. It is one of two railway stations at the airport, the other is for local S-Bahn trains (lines S8 and S9), called Frankfurt Airport Regional Station.
The two major stations in the city centre are Hauptwache and Konstablerwache, both located on Frankfurts most famous shopping street, the Zeil.
Public transport
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The city has two underground railway systems: the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, as well as an above-ground tram system. Information about the U and S Bahn can be found on the RMV website.
Nine S-Bahn lines connect Frankfurt with the Rhine Main Region. All lines have a 30 minute service during the day but the majority of the routes are served by two lines thereby offering a 15 minute schedule. All lines, except line S7, run through the Frankfurt city tunnel and serve the stations Ostendstraße, Konstablerwache, Hauptwache, Taunusanlage and Frankfurt Central Station. When leaving the city the S-Bahn travels above ground. It provides access to the Frankfurt Trade Fair (S3-S6), the airport (S8, S9), the stadium (S7-S9) and nearby cities such as Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt, Rüsselsheim, Hanau, Offenbach am Main, Bad Homburg, Kronberg and smaller towns that are on the way.
The U-Bahn has seven lines serving the city centre and some larger suburbs. The trains that run on the line are in fact lightrails as many lines travel along a track in the middle of the street instead of underground further from the city centre. There is only one line (U4) that is completely underground. The minimum service interval is 2.5 minutes, although the usual pattern is that each line runs with a 7.5-10 minute frequency which combines to approx 3-5 minutes on the city centre sections served by more than one line.
Frankfurt has 9 tram lines, with trams arriving usually every 10 minutes. Many sections are served by two lines, combining to give a 5 minute frequency during rush-hour. The tram runs only above ground and serve more stops than the U-Bahn or the S-Bahn.
A number of bus lines complete the Frankfurt public transportation system. Night buses take over the service of the U-Bahn and tram at 1:30 am to 3:30 am on Friday and Saturday nights.</ |
