Frankfurt am Main is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a mid-2007 population of 663,567. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,260,001 in 2001. The city is at the center of the larger Frankfurt Rhine Main Area which has a population of 5 million and is Germany's second largest metropolitan area.
Situated on the river Main, Frankfurt is the financial and transportation centre of Germany. Frankfurt is the place of residence of the European Central Bank, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and is one of the two largest financial centres in continental Europe (the other one being Paris). Frankfurt was named Europe's richest city in 2001 as measured by GDP per capita. It is also listed as one of nine Alpha world cities
Among English speakers the city is commonly known simply as "Frankfurt", though Germans occasionally call it by its full name when it is necessary to distinguish it from the other (significantly smaller) Frankfurt in the German state of Brandenburg, known as Frankfurt (Oder). It was once called Frankfort-on-the-Main in English, a translation of Frankfurt am Main.
Frankfurt has played a central role in the political history of Germany and the German states for centuries. From 855 to 1792 Frankfurt was the electoral city for the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In the 1848-49 revolutions, it became a sort of revolutionary capital and was the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the Frankfurter Paulskirche, or St. Paul's Church.
The three pillars of Frankfurt's economy are finance, transport, and trade fairs. Frankfurt has been Germany's financial capital for centuries, and it is the home of a number of major banks and brokerages. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is by far Germany's largest, and is one of the world's most important. Frankfurt is also the seat of the European Central Bank which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone economy, and of the German Bundesbank. A number of major German commercial banks, including Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, and Commerzbank, are based in Frankfurt.
Frankfurt has an excellent transportion infrastructure and the Frankfurt International Airport is a major European aviation hub. Frankfurt Airport ranks among the world's top ten airports and serves 304 flight destinations in 110 countries. Depending on whether total passengers or flights are used, it ranks as the second or third busiest in Europe alongside London Heathrow Airport and Paris' Charles de Gaulle. Its central location at Europe's heart and its excellent accessibility by air, rail and road make Frankfurt Airport City especially attractive. In addition, many large trade fairs take place in Frankfurt each year, notably the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (Frankfurt Motor Show) and the Frankfurt Book Fair, which have far over 100,000 visitors each, but also important special interest fairs like the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo or Musikmesse Frankfurt.
Frankfurt is sometimes nicknamed "Bankfurt", "Mainhattan" (derived from the local River Main) or "The Big Äppel" (a reference to "Äppelwoi", or apple wine, a type of cider which is produced and drunk mainly in the region). It is one of only four European cities that have a significant number of high-rise skyscrapers. With eleven skyscrapers taller than 150 m (492 ft) in 2004, Frankfurt is second behind Paris (La Défense and Montparnasse, with twelve skyscrapers taller than 150 m, not counting the Eiffel Tower), but ahead of London (Canary Wharf and the City, with eight skyscrapers taller than 150 m) and Moscow (seven skyscrapers taller than 150 m). The city of Frankfurt contains the tallest skyscraper in the European Union, the Commerzbank Tower, which is also the second tallest on the continent (after the Triumph-Palace building in Moscow).
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