Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Portal:Baden-Württemberg
Introduction
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg_in_Germany.svg/100px-Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg_in_Germany.svg.png)
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 as of 2019[update] 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
![Tennetschlucht bridge between Langenbrand and Gausbach](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Murgtalbahn_Tennetschluchtbruecke_Stadtbahn.jpg/200px-Murgtalbahn_Tennetschluchtbruecke_Stadtbahn.jpg)
The Murg Valley Railway (German: Murgtalbahn) is a 58 kilometre long railway line in the Northern Black Forest in Germany, that links Rastatt and Freudenstadt. It was opened in stages from 1868 to 1928 being built outwards from both Rastatt and Freudenstadt. The route through the narrow Murg Valley required the construction of numerous tunnels and bridges. The section between the stations of Baiersbronn and Freudenstadt Stadt is a steep ramp which is why it had to be operated until 1926 as a rack railway. Even today it can only be worked by vehicles that have the required approval.
After the occasional long-distance passenger services had been withdrawn in the 1990s, the Murg Valley Railway was integrated into the network of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn between 2002 and 2004. Since then it has been operated by Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG), using their fleet of tram-trains. At Freudenstadt, these meet the services of the Ortenau S-Bahn (OSB), operating over the Kinzig Valley Railway to Offenburg.
Selected biography
![Friedrich Schiller](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Friedrich_Schiller_by_Ludovike_Simanowiz.jpg/100px-Friedrich_Schiller_by_Ludovike_Simanowiz.jpg)
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German: [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ]; 10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision. Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg.
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
Selected image
![Bichishausen im Großen Lautertal](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Bichishausen_im_Gro%C3%9Fen_Lautertal.jpg/300px-Bichishausen_im_Gro%C3%9Fen_Lautertal.jpg)
Bichishausen im Großen Lautertal
Did you know?
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/Stuttgart_Wilhelma_1900.jpg/100px-Stuttgart_Wilhelma_1900.jpg)
- ...that the Wilhelma in Stuttgart is Europe's only large combined zoological and botanical garden, and is home to over 8,000 animals representing more than 1,000 different species, as well as more than 5,000 species of plants..
- ...that Albert Einstein was born in the Kingdom of Württemberg? Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics".
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Selected panorama
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Bad Säckingen is a rural town in the administrative district of Waldshut in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is famous as the "Trumpeteer's City" because of the book "The Trumpeteer of Säckingen", a famous 19th-century novel by German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel.
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