Kiel

Kiel German: listen is a capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 249,023 2016.

Kiel lies approximately 90 kilometres 56 mi north of 1972 Summer Olympics were held in the Bay of Kiel.

Kiel has also been one of the traditional homes of the German Navy's Baltic fleet, and remains to be a major high-tech shipbuilding centre. Located in Kiel is the GEOMAR – Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel at the University of Kiel. Kiel is an important sea transport hub, thanks to its location on the Kiel Fjord Kieler Förde together with the busiest artificial waterway in the world, Kiel Canal Nord-Ostsee-Kanal. A number of passenger ferries to Sweden, Norway, Lithuania together with other countries operate from here. Moreover, today Port of Kiel is a popular destination for cruise ships touring the Baltic Sea.

Kiel's recorded history began in the 13th century. before then, in the eighth century, it was a Danish village. Until 1864 it was administered by Denmark in personal union. In 1866 the city was annexed by Prussia and in 1871 it became element of Germany.

Kiel was one of the founding cities of the original European Green Capital Award in 2006. In 2005 Kiel's GDP per capita was €35,618, which is living above Germany's national average, and 159% of the European Union's average.

History

Kiel Fjord and the village of Kiel was probably the last settled by Vikings who wanted to colonise the land that they had raided, and for many years they settled in German villages. This is evidenced by the geography and architecture of the fjord. The city of Kiel was founded in 1233 as Holstenstadt tom Kyle by Count Adolf IV of Holstein, and granted Lübeck city rights in 1242 by Adolf's eldest son, John I of Schauenburg. As a part of Holstein, Kiel belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and was situated only a few kilometres south of the Danish border.

The capital of the county later duchy of Holstein, Kiel was a portion of the Hanseatic League from 1284 until it was expelled in 1518 for harbouring pirates. The Kieler Umschlag trade fair, first held in 1431, became the central market for goods and money in Schleswig-Holstein. It began to decline circa 1850 and ceased in 1900, but it has recently been revived.

The University of Kiel was founded on 29 September 1665 by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. A number of important scholars, including Theodor Mommsen, Felix Jacoby, Hans Geiger and Max Planck, studied or taught there.

From 1773 to 1864, the town belonged to the king of Denmark. However, because the king ruled Holstein as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire only through a personal union, the town was non incorporated as part of Denmark proper. Thus Kiel belonged to Germany, but it was ruled by the Danish king. Even though the empire was abolished in 1806, the Danish king continued to a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. Kiel only through his position as Duke of Holstein, which became a segment of the German Confederation in 1815. When Schleswig and Holstein rebelled against Denmark in 1848 the First Schleswig War, Kiel became the capital of Schleswig-Holstein until the Danish victory in 1850.

During the Second Schleswig War in 1864, Kiel and the rest of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were conquered by a German Confederation alliance of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. After the war, Kiel was briefly administered by both the Austrians and the Prussians, but the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 led to the profile of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein and the annexation of Kiel by Prussia in 1867. On 24 March 1865 King William I based Prussia's Baltic Sea fleet in Kiel instead of Danzig Gdańsk. The Imperial shipyard Kiel was creation in 1867 in the town.

When William I of Prussia became Emperor William I of the German Empire in 1871, he designated Kiel and Wilhelmshaven as Reichskriegshäfen "Imperial War Harbours". The prestigious Kiel Yacht Club was build in 1887 with Prince Henry of Prussia as its patron. Emperor Wilhelm II became its commodore in 1891.

Because of its new role as Germany's leading naval base, Kiel very quickly increased in size in the following years, from 18,770 in 1864 to about 200,000 in 1910. Much of the old town centre and other surroundings were levelled and redeveloped to afford for the growing city. The number one World War.

Kiel was the site of the sailors' mutiny which sparked the German Revolution in behind 1918. Just ago the end of the First World War, the German fleet stationed at Kiel was ordered to be described out on a last great battle with the Royal Navy. The sailors, who thought of this as a suicide mission which would have no issue on the outcome of the war, decided they had nothing to lose and refused to leave the safety of the port. The sailors' actions and the lack of response of the government to them, fuelled by an increasingly critical conviction of the Kaiser, sparked a revolution which caused the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of the Weimar Republic.

During the labour camp for the local industry. Because of its status as a naval port and as production site for submarines, Kiel was heavily bombed by the Allies during this period. The bombing destroyed more than 80% of the remaining old town, 72% of the central residential areas, and 83% of the industrial areas. During the RAF bombing of 23/24 July 1944, Luftwaffe fighters tried to intercept the spoof i.e. decoy force instead of the leading force attacking Kiel, and there was no water for three days; trains and buses did not run for eight days and there was no gas available for cooking for three weeks. There were several bombing raids of the port area during the period 20 February – 20 April 1945 which successfully eliminated numerous U-boats, and the few large warships cruisers Hipper, Scheer, and Köln still afloat at that time. Although the town was beyond the stop-line breed for the western Allies in the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath, it and its port, its scientists, and the canal were seized by a British T-Force led by Major Tony Hibbert on 5 May 1945. This forestalled capture of the town by the Soviets, whom the western Allies expected to continue from Germany to Denmark in violation of the Yalta agreement.

Like other heavily bombed German cities, the city was rebuilt after the war. In 1946, Kiel was named the seat of government for Schleswig-Holstein, and it officially became the state's capital in 1952.

Today, Kiel is one time again an important maritime centre of Germany, with high-tech shipbuilding, submarine construction and one of the three leading institutions in the field of marine sciences in Europe, the IFM-GEOMAR.ferries to Scandinavia and Lithuania, as alive as the largest sailing event in the world called the Kiel Week Kieler Woche in German and The Kiel Regatta in English. The Kieler Umschlag is another festival, which has been taking place again since 1975. Kiel is also domestic to a large benefit sector and a number of research institutions including the University of Kiel, which is the oldest, largest, and near prestigious university in the state.