About Bonn
Current information about Bonn in English you can find here.
Sightseeing information you find here.
A history of more than 2000 years has given the city most varied facets. Historical sights, highlights of art to be admired at the different houses of the Bonn Museum Mile, picturesque impressions along the romantic Rhine, the international life or the political life of Bonn and much more.
Museum Mile
Bonn’s main attraction for art and culture amateurs from all over the world is the Museum Mile that counts more than one million visitors per year. In the town centre, a series of City Museums invite the visitor in a very comfortable distance from one another. The museum landscape continues in the northern part of Bonn, where several institutions have associated to form the “Kunst & Szene Altstadt”.
The Rhineland Regional Museum (Rheinisches Landesmuseum) shows the history of the human population, the culture, and the art in the Rhineland. The social event and conference dinner will take place in the Rhineland Regional Museum. More details you find here.
The Haus der Geschichte presents German contemporary history in a concrete way with a clear message. The permanent exhibition of photography, documents, and many original objects of German post war history covers 4.000 square meters.
Two of the major collections of the Kunstmuseum Bonn (Bonn Art Museum) are “August Macke and the Rhenish Expressionists” and works of internationally recognised representatives of German art since 1945. The works are housed in a spectacular building designed by the Berlin architect Axel Schultes.
The Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn), designed by Gustav Peichl, is a venue for temporary exhibitions in the heart of Europe that emphazises trends of national and international cultural developments, taking into account also scientific and technological aspects.
Museum Alexander Koenig is one of the best zoological museums in Germany. After a fundamental reorganisation it has been re-opened in October 2003 and has been enlarged by an ecological information centre called ‘The Blue Planet - Living in a Network’ (Der Blaue Planet - Leben im Netzwerk).
Milestones of German research discoveries during the last 50 years are on exhibit in the Deutsches Museum Bonn (German Museum Bonn). In the Wissenschaftszentrum about 100 original items - from the magnetic rail ‘Transrapid’ to the Nobel Prize winning ion trap are to be admired on a surface of 1.500 square meters.
Famous Citizens
The homes of famous Bonn citizens are also open to tourists: the August-Macke-Haus (painter), the Schumannhaus (composer), the home of Ernst Moritz Arndt (intellectual and poet) and naturally the birthplace of Bonn’s most famous citizen, the composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven, Germany’s greatest composer, are played throughout the world. At the tender age of 12 he was already creating sonatas and symphonies which to this day form the basis of every good musical education. The house where he was born in December 1770 has become the symbol of Bonn. Many of the city’s musical events are dedicated to its most gifted son and music fans from all over the world every year come to Bonn’s Beethoven festivals.
From Federal Capital to UN City
Bonn was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999. Starting in 1998, many national government institutions were moved from Bonn to Berlin. Both houses of the German national parliament, the Bundestag as well as the Bundesrat, were moved along with the Chancellery and the residence of German head of state, the Bundespräsident.
Bonn remains a centre of politics and administration, however. Roughly half of all government jobs were retained as many government departments remained in Bonn and numerous sub-ministerial level government agencies relocated to the former capital from Berlin and other parts of Germany. In recognition of this, the former capital now holds the title of Federal City (”Bundesstadt”).
Bonn has developed into a hub of international cooperation in particular in the area of environment and sustainable development. In addition to a number of other international organizations and institutions, such as, for instance, the IUCN Environmental Law Center (IUCN ELC) the City currently hosts 16 United Nations institutions. Among these are two of the so-called Rio Conventions, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The number of UN agencies in Bonn, most of which are based at the newly established United Nations Campus in the city’s former parliamentary quarter on the banks of the Rhine, continues to grow.
Bonn is the seat of some of Germany’s largest corporate players, chiefly in the areas of telecommunications and logistics. Simultaneously, Bonn is establishing itself as an important national and international centre of meetings, conventions and conferences, many of which are directly related to the work of the United Nations. A new conference centre capable of hosting thousands of participants is currently under construction in the immediate vicinity of the UN Campus.
Cologne
Located in 30 km distance of Bonn is the city of Cologne, Germany’s fourth-largest city and one of the oldest cities in Germany. The city is most famous for the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) a World Heritage Site, and one of the best-known architectural monuments in Germany. Cologne Cathedral is one of the world’s largest churches and the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. From Bonn, Cologne can be easily reached via train.
More Information
You can find more information about Bonn at the following website:
