With its almost 2000-year history, Cologne is not only Germany’s oldest city, and with more than 1,025,000 inhabitants its fourth-largest city, but is also the most important city destination in North Rhine-Westphalia:

With 284,000 m² of hall space and more than 100,000 m² of space outdoors, Koelnmesse possesses the fourth largest trade fair and exhibition centre in the world and provides space annually for around 50 exhibitions and international trade fairs with a total of 2 million visitors. In addition, numerous national and international congresses and conferences are organized in Cologne with participants from all over Europe. The total of more than 2,000 events which are held in the 10 locations of KölnKongress attract more than 1 million visitors each year.

The business location of Cologne lies at the centre of Europe’s region with the densest population and most purchasing power. Internationally-operating trading companies, large DAX-listed companies, strong service providers and innovative information technology are all based here. Eleven TV stations and just as many radio programmes broadcast from the cathedral city.

The largest university with around 44,300 students and the largest university of Applied sciences in Germany with 16,500 students are located ere. In addition, there are numerous other institutes of further education universities and public research institutes. No less than three Max-Planck institutes are based in the cathedral city, a fourth one for ageing research is planned.

Cologne, a traffic junction with an outstanding infrastructure with efficient local public transport and short distances: the motorway ring road is accessible from all directions, the central station with 1,200 train daily and two international airports - Cologne/Bonn and Düsseldorf, as well as the direct ICE express rail connection to Frankfurt am Main Airport.

Cologne Cathedral – part of UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage and, at a height of 157 m, the second tallest church Europe - is Germany's leading tourist attraction and attracts more than six million visitors every year. The art and culture scene in Cologne is world-class, whether in the area of literature, theatre or music.

Cologne is one of most popular cities in Germany: The Cathedral, the Rhine, the museums, the numerous events - all of them attract around 110 million visitors to the city annually. Most of them praise the typical “kölsche” savoir vivre" afterwards – the people of Cologne love their city and you can feel that.