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The Regional Authority of Frankfurt Rhein-Main is the cooperation body of the administratively fragmented
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
urban area and the common authority for Frankfurt am Main and its 75 neighboring communities. It manages and coordinates the regional development of Frankfurt am Main and its suburbs. It also represents the Frankfurt urban area nationally and internationally and is responsible for the strategic alignment of the local decision-making, for the development of a common regional image and an improved regional harmonisation. The authority draws up and updates the regional preparatory land use plans, local development and zoning plans, and carries out an intensive regional monitoring to coordinate the development of the urban region.


History and structure

Since the last incorporation of suburbs into the city boundaries of
Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
in 1977, no local government boundary reform has been possible due to general rejection of such attempts by local politicians. Since Frankfurt and its neighbouring municipalities are
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
a highly integrated regional city, the government of the
State of Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...
adopted a law in 2011, creating the Regional Authority FrankfurtRheinMain as a supra-local authority. Its purpose is to ensure coordinated actions and developments within the urban region as well as its representation on a national and international level.


Finance Industry

The Frankfurt am Main is one of the world's leading metropolitan regions in economic terms. It is the largest financial centre in continental Europe and ranks among the world's leading financial centres. It is home to the
European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important centr ...
, Deutsche Bundesbank,
Frankfurt Stock Exchange The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (german: link=no, Börse Frankfurt, former German name – FWB) is the world's 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. It has operations from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm ( German time). Organisation Loca ...
and other important commercial banks. Frankfurt is therefore considered a global city (alpha world city) as listed by the Loughborough University group's 2010 inventory. Among global cities it was ranked 10th by the Global Power City Index 2011 and 11th by the Global City Competitiveness Index 2012. Among financial centers it was ranked 8th by the International Financial Centers Development Index 2013 and 9th by the Global Financial Centres Index 2013.


Traffic

Due to its central location within Germany and Europe, Frankfurt is a major air, rail and highway transport hub.
Frankfurt Airport Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...
is one of the world's busiest international airports by passenger traffic and the main hub for Germany's
flag carrier A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by the government for international operations. Hi ...
Lufthansa, the largest
airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...
in Europe.
Frankfurt Central Station Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof, also called Frankfurt Central Station and Frankfurt Main Station, is the busiest railway station in the German state of Hesse. Because of its location near the middle of Germany and usage as a transport hub for lo ...
is one of the largest
terminal station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing su ...
s in Europe and the busiest junction operated by Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway company, with 342 daily trains to domestic and European destinations. Frankfurter Kreuz, the
Autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track' ...
interchange close to the airport, is the most heavily used interchange in the EU with approximately 320,000 cars daily.


Commerce

Frankfurt is also a centre for commerce, culture, education, tourism and web traffic.
Messe Frankfurt Messe Frankfurt () is the world's largest trade fair, congress and event organizer with its own exhibition grounds. The organisation has 2,500 employees at some 30 locations, generating annual sales of around €661 million. Its services inclu ...
is one of the world's largest
trade fair A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and ...
s at 578,000 square metres and ten exhibition halls, a central logistics centre and an attached convention centre. Major trade fairs include the
Frankfurt Motor Show The International Motor Show Germany or International Mobility Show Germany, in German known as the ''Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung'' (''IAA'' – International Automobile Exhibition), is one of the world's largest mobility shows. It cons ...
, the world's largest motor show, and the
Frankfurt Book Fair The Frankfurt Book Fair (German: Frankfurter Buchmesse, FBM) is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. It is considered to be the most important book fair in the world for internationa ...
, the world's largest book fair. Frankfurt is also home to many cultural and
educational Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
institutions including the
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...
and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, many museums (e.g. Städel,
Naturmuseum Senckenberg The Naturmuseum Senckenberg is a museum of natural history, located in Frankfurt am Main. It is the second-largest of its type in Germany. The museum contains a large and diverse collection of birds with 90,000 bird skins, 5,050 egg sets, 17,0 ...
,
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt The Schirn Kunsthalle is a Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, located in the old city between the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral. The Schirn exhibits both modern and contemporary art. It is the main venue for temporary art exhibitions in Fr ...
, Goethe House), and two major
botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...
s, the Palmengarten, which is Germany's largest, and the Botanical Garden of the Goethe University. In 2011, the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Frankfurt as seventh in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of cities around the world. According to
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
cost of living survey, Frankfurt is Germany's most expensive city, and the 10th most expensive in the world.


Unique characteristics

A unique feature of Frankfurt is its
skyline A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city’s overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land. City skyline ...
with a significant number of skyscrapers and
high-rise buildings A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdictio ...
in the city centre. Frankfurt is one of only a few cities in the European Union that have such a skyline. Because of the city's skyline, Germans sometimes refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan, a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsMain River Main rivers () are a statutory type of watercourse in England and Wales, usually larger streams and rivers, but also some smaller watercourses. A main river is designated by being marked as such on a main river map, and can include any structure o ...
and
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Before the city was devastation during World War II, the city was also globally noted for its unique old town with timberframe buildings. The Römer area was later rebuilt and is popular with visitors and for events such as
Christmas market A Christmas market, also known as ''Christkindlmarkt'' (literally: ''Christ Child Market'', but the term "Christkind" usually refers to an angel-like "spirit of Christmas" rather than literally the Christ Child), ''Christkindlesmarkt'', ''Chris ...
s. other parts of the old town are reconstructed at the
Dom-Römer Project The New Frankfurt Old Town (also known as the Dom-Römer Quarter) is the centre of the old town of Frankfurt am Main, which was reconstructed from 2012 to 2018 as part of a major urban development project called the Dom-Römer Project (german: ...
until 2016. Among English-speakers, the city is commonly known simply as Frankfurt, but Germans occasionally call it by its full name when it is necessary to distinguish it from the other (significantly smaller) German city called Frankfurt in the
federated state A federated state (which may also be referred to as a state, a province, a region, a canton, a land, a governorate, an oblast, an emirate or a country) is a territorial and constitutional community forming part of a federation. Such states d ...
of
Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 sq ...
, Frankfurt (Oder), on the Polish border. The common abbreviations for the city, which are primarily used in railway services and on road signs, are ''Frankfurt (Main)'', ''Frankfurt (M)'', ''Frankfurt a.M.'', ''Frankfurt/Main'' or ''Frankfurt/M''. The common
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for the city is "FFM". Also in use is "FRA", the
IATA code IATA codes are abbreviations that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) publishes to facilitate air travel. They are typically 1, 2, 3, or 4 character combinations (referred to as unigrams, digrams, trigrams, or tetragrams, respect ...
for Frankfurt Airport.


References


External links


Frankfurt Rhein-Main Regional AuthorityFrankfurt International AirportRhein-Main Metropolitan TransitFrankfurt/Rhein-Main 2020 – the European metropolitan regionOne region - Boundless possibilities
{{Coord, 50.1, N, 8.7, E, scale:1000000_region:DE, display=title Geography of Frankfurt Geography of Wiesbaden Geography of Hesse