Baden-Württemberg

First and foremost in many spheres

The State of Baden-Württemberg abounds in noteworthy individuality and accomplishments: An efficient economy, distinctive high tech and our future-oriented research infrastructure are well known and widely respected. And unmistakably present is its art and culture, its traditions, its landscape and, of course, its people.

Baden-Württemberg is located in the heart of Europe. In the west it borders onto France and in the south onto Switzerland as well as, across Lake Constance, onto Austria. It is the third largest of the 16 German federal states with regard to its 35,752 sq.km (13,803 sq.mi) and its population of nearly eleven million inhabitants.

The Southwest State today is one of the leading European industrial regions. Products from Baden-Württemberg are in demand all over the world. Typical not only in urban centers are concentrations of small and mid-sized businesses in manufacturing and refinement industries, especially mechanical engineering, automobiles and information and mass media industry.

All the important service enterprises such as banks and software producers with international stature, as well as Germany's leading multi-media agencies have their headquarters or branch offices here. Around 15% of German books are published in this State. Also located here are a number of ecological bio-enterprises.

Baden-Württemberg maintains nine universities, six teacher training colleges and 25 professional-technical colleges, five music colleges, two art academies, a college of design technology, a film academy, a pop academy and eight business academies. There are also a further non state-run 20 technical colleges, as well as a large number of research institutes not linked to universities. Baden-Württemberg has thus the most abundant variety of educational and research facilities in Germany. This important location factor leads to productive synergies between traditional and future technologies such as nano- and micro-systems, new materials, bio- and genetic engineering, environmental and energy engineering as well as communications and information technologies. Numerous inventors and entrepreneurs have come from Baden-Württemberg. But this is also the land of poets and thinkers. Schiller, Hölderlin, Hegel, Mörike, Hesse, Heidegger ... the list of famous names is long indeed.

Baden-Württemberg is a young state, its foundation based on a plebiscite held in December 1951. The Southwest State was formed out of the former states of Baden, Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Württemberg-Baden, and on April 25, 1952 became the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Its new constitution went into effect November 19, 1953. The city of Stuttgart is the political center of Baden-Württemberg. Here is located the state parliament and it is the seat of the state government.

That the merger of Baden-Württemberg is a political and economic success was noted in a remarkably pithy phrase by the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss. He designated this state as "the model of German possibilities".

Merger, multiplicity and unity of Baden-Württemberg are aptly expressed in the Great State Coat-of-Arms.

The Hohenstaufen duchy of Swabia's crest enlivens the shield: Three black lions on gold recall the high medieval epoch between 1079 and 1268 when the Staufer dynasty determined the history of the German Empire. The shield holders are the golden stag of Württemberg and the griffin of Baden.

The crown of badges represents the past of the state, depicting the historic crests of eastern Franconia, (silver and red spearpoints called the "Franconian rake"), of Hohenzollern (white and black squares), of Baden (red diagonal bar on gold background), of Württemberg (three black on gold antlers), of the Palatinate (golden lion on black background), and of anterior Austria (red-white-red bars inside a shield).