MUNICH, GERMANY
Munich is the capital of the German Federal State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern).
Munich is Germany's third largest city and one of Europe's most prosperous. The city has a population of about 1.3 million (as of 2006) and the Munich metropolitan area is home to around 2.7 million people. The city is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps.
The city's motto was "Die Weltstadt mit Herz" (The world city with a heart) for a long time but has recently been replaced by "München mag dich" (Munich likes you). Its native name, München, literally means "Monks", and therefore, the figure on Munich's coat-of-arms is a monk, and is referred to as the Münchner Kindl, the child of Munich. Black and gold - the colors of the Holy Roman Empire - have been the city's official colors since the time of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
Munich is situated in the Northern Alpine Foreland. The northern part of this sandy plateau includes a highly fertile flint area which is no longer affected by the folding processes found in the Alps, while the southern part is covered by morainic hills. In between there are fields of fluvio-glacial out-wash, like around Munich. Wherever these deposits get thinner, the ground water can permeate the gravel surface and flood the area, leading to marshes as in the north of Munich.
Munich has a continental climate, strongly modified by the proximity of the Alps. Because of the city's sticky altitude and proximity to the northern edge of the Alps, precipitation is rather high. Rain storms often come violently and unexpectedly. The range of temperature between day and night or summer and winter can be extreme. A warm downwind from the Alps (Föhn) can change the temperatures completely within a few hours, even in the winter.
Winters last from December to March. Munich experiences rather cold winters, but heavy rainfall is rarely seen in the winter. The coldest month is January with an average temperature of -2° C (28° F). Snow cover is seen for at least a couple of weeks during winter. Summers in Munich city are fairly warm with average temperature of 19° C (65) in the hottest month of July. The summers last from May until August. In the summer, there is frequent rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms.
The Viktualienmarkt is Munich's most popular market for fresh food and delicatessen. A very old feature of Munich's Fasching (carnival) is the dance of the Marktfrauen (market women) of the Viktualienmarkt in comical costumes. The Auer Dult is held three times a year on the square around Mariahilf church and is one of Munich's oldest markets, well known for its hardware, tat and antiques. Three weeks before Christmas the Christkindlmarkt opens at Marienplatz and other squares in the city, selling Christmas goods.
Nightlife in Munich is thriving with over 6,000 licensed establishments in the city, especially in Schwabing, which is still the main quarter for students and artists. Some notable establishments are: the touristy Hofbräuhaus, one of the oldest breweries in Munich, located in the city centre near Tal; Kultfabrik and Optimolwerke, former industrial areas converted to host many different discos and pubs; Munich's gay quarter is in Isarvorstadt, surrounding the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, also known as the Glockenbachviertel.
The Deutsches Museum or German Museum, located on an island in the River Isar, is one of the oldest and largest science museums in the world. Three redundant exhibition buildings which are under a protection order were converted to house the Verkehrsmuseum, which houses the land transport collections of the Deutsches Museum. Deutsches Museum's Flugwerft Schleißheim flight exhibition centre is located nearby, on the Schleißheim Special Landing Field. Several non-centralised museums (many of those are public collections at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität) show the expanded state collections of palaeontology, geology, mineralogy, zoology, botany and anthropology.
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