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'Jena' is a town in central Germany on the River Saale. With a population of 102,494, it is the third biggest town in the federal state of Thuringia.

Contents

History

Economy

Main sights

Public Transport

Colleges, universities and research institutes

Museums

Culture

Famous citizens

Sister cities

External links

References

History

Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document. In the 11th century it was a possession of the lords of Lobdeburg, but in the following century it developed into an independent market town with laws and magistrates of its own. Economy was based mainly on wine production. In 1286 the Dominicans established in the city, followed by the Cistercians in 1301.
The margraves of Meißen imposed their authority over Jena in 1331. From 1423 it belonged to Electoral Saxony of the Housen of Wettin, who had inherited Meißen, remaining with it also after the division of their lands in 1485.
The Protestant Reformation was brought into the city in 1523. In the following years the Dominican and the Carmelite convents were attacked by the townsmen. In 1548, the university was founded by elector John Frederick the Magnanimous.
For a short period (1670-1690), Jena was the capital of an independent dukedom (Saxe-Jena). In 1692 it was annexed to Saxe-Eisenach and in 1741 to the Duchy (later Grand Duchy) of Saxe-Weimar, to which it belonged until 1918.
On 14 October 1806, Napoleon fought and defeated the Prussian army here in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. Resistance against the French occupation was strong, especially among the town students, many of which fought in the Lützow Free Corps in 1813. Two years later the Urburschenschaft fraternity was founded in the city.
In 1945, towards the end of World War II, Jena was heavily bombed by the American and British Allies. 153 people were killed and most of the medieval town centre was destroyed (though restored after the end of the war).
Part of the State of Thuringia from its foundation in 1920 on, it was incorporated into the German Democratic Republic in 1949 and its district of Gera in 1952. Since 1990, the city of Jena has been a part of the Free State of Thuringia in the united Federal Republic of Germany.

Economy

Today Jena is a manufacturing city, specializing in precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, optics and photographic equipment, and is home to the famous Zeiss optics plant. In 1926, the world's first modern planetarium was built by the Zeiss company in the Damenviertel district of the town.
Today the city's economy diversifies into bioinformatics, biotechnology, software and photonics. The metropolitan area of Jena is among Germany's 50 fastest growing regions.

Main sights

★ The 13th century ''Rathaus'' ("Town Hall"). It has astronomic clock featuring the ''Schnapphans'' ("Snatching Hans").

★ The Gothic St. Michael's Church (''Michaelskirche'', 1506). It has a bronze slab of Martin Luther's tomb

★ Monument to John Frederick the Magnanimous (1905-08), in the Market Square

★ The Old Castle and numerous towers from the medieval fortifications, including the Powder Tower (13th-14th centuries)

★ House of Friedrich Schillerand his Wedding Church.

★ The Botanical Garden, founded in 1580, the second oldest botanical garden in Germany

★ Jen-Tower, a research edifice built in GDR times. There is a restaurant and viewing platform at the 27th floor.
In the neighbourhood are the Dornburg Castles and the Kapellendorf Moated Castle.

Public Transport

★ The city is served by an extensive network of buses and trams run by the "Jenah" organization (a pun on Jena and ''Nahverkehr'', the German for local public transport).

★ busses of the JES Verkehrsgesellschaft connect Jena with cities and villages in the region

★ The high-speed railway line from Berlin to Munich calls at the Jena-Paradies station just to the east of the city centre; trains from Erfurt and further west arrive at the Westbahnhof just west of the city centre.

★ The nearest airports to Jena are Altenburg-Nobitz Airport and Erfurt Airport. However international visitors normally arrive at Frankfurt, Berlin or Munich airports, from all of which there are convenient train connections to Jena.

Colleges, universities and research institutes

★ The Friedrich Schiller University of Jena was founded in 1558 as the "Collegium Jenense".

★ In 1794 the poets Goethe and Schiller met at the university and established a long lasting friendship.

★ The University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule Jena) was founded in 1990.

★ The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology is an important research center and offers a Ph.D. program.

★ The Max Planck Institute of Economics

★ The Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

★ The Institute for Physical High Technology

★ INNOVENT - one of the biggest private research centers in Germany

★ The Leibniz Institute for Age Research

★ The Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology

★ Friedrich-Löffler-Institute for Infectious Disease Control

★ The Jena Center for Bioinformatics

Museums

★ Optical Museum Jena - history of optical instruments

★ Schott GlassMuseum - production and usage of glass

★ Citymuseum Göhre - urban history of Jena

★ Botanical Garden

★ Phyletical Museum - biology

★ Romanticism House - literary

★ Memorial to Goethe - literary

★ Oriental Coin Cabinet Jena - Oriental history, numismatics

Culture

★ The Jenaer Philharmonie is the largest independent symphony orchestra in Thuringia.

★ Jena and the University of Jena, located in the same region as displaced town (in both time and space) of Grantville, WV, play a prominent role in 1632 and several other works in the best selling fiction 1632 series. Jena becomes part of the New United States founded by the Americans of Grantville introducing modern thought a political theory into the middle of the Thirty Years' War, and the University the heart of their attempt to introduce modern medical knowledge and practices into the plague ridden Germanies.

Famous citizens

★ Johannes R. Becher, composer

★ Bernhard, Prince of the Netherlands

★ Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, orientalist and Protestant theologian of the Enlightenment

★ Walter Eucken, founder of neoliberal economic theory

★ Johann Gottlieb Fichte, philosopher and early German nationalist

★ Gottlob Frege, mathematician, logician, and philosopher

★ Friedrich August Froebel, inventor of the kindergarten

★ Andy Glandt (banjo player)

★ Johann Wolfgang Goethe

★ Ernst Haeckel, German evolutionary biologist/zoologist

★ Georg Hegel

★ Friedrich Hölderlin

★ Martin Luther, reformer

★ Philipp Melanchthon, theologian

★ Novalis

★ Friedrich Schelling

★ Friedrich Schiller

★ Caroline Böhmer Schlegel Schelling

★ Wilhelm Schlegel

★ Andreas Ritter

★ Otto Schott, inventor of fireproof glass, founder of the Schott glass works

★ Johann Gustav Stickel, orientalist

★ Kurt Tucholsky, writer

★ Carl Zeiss, founder of the Zeiss company

★ Ernst Abbe, physicist, social reformer, partner of Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott

Sister cities

★ Lugoj, Romania, since 1983

★ Erlangen, Germany, since 1987

★ San Marcos, Nicaragua, since 1996

★ Aubervilliers, France, since 1999

External links

★ Official Homepage of Jena

★ Jena: pictures

★ Jenah local public transport information

★ Fachhochschule Jena

★ Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

★ Oriental Coin Cabinet of the Friedrich-Schiller-University

★ Events, locations & community for Jena

References

1. Population of Thuringia by district Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik