Leipzig - City of Germany

Leipzig the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.

Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the linden trees stand".

First documented in 1015 and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165, Leipzig has fundamentally shaped the history of Saxony and of Germany. Leipzig has always been known as a place of commerce. The Leipzig Trade Fair, which began in the Middle Ages, is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. It became an event of international importance.

The Leipzig region was the arena of the Battle of the Nations, which ended Napoleon's run of conquest in Europe, and led to his first exile on Elba. In 1913 the Völkerschlachtdenkmal monument celebrating the centenary of this event was completed.

A terminal of the first German long distance railway to Dresden , in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with the renowned Leipzig Central station, the largest terminal station by area in Europe.

The city's mayor from 1930 to 1937, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was a noted opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany. He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue was deliberately destroyed.

In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas' Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German regime.

Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but did not make it to the short list.

Leipzig University, founded 1409, is one of Europe's oldest universities. Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg worked here as a physics professor , as did Nobel Prize laureates Gustav Ludwig Hertz (physics), Wilhelm Ostwald and Theodor Mommsen . Other former staff of faculty include mineralogist Georg Agricola, writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, philosopher Ernst Bloch, eccentric founder of psychophysics Gustav Theodor Fechner, and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt.

Among the research institutes located in Leipzig three belong to the Max Planck Society and two are Fraunhofer Society institutes. Others are the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, part of the Helmholtz Association, and the Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research.