Stuttgart

Stuttgart is a city in the southwest of Germany, located in the center of the densely populated region Mittlerer Neckarraum[?]. Stuttgart is the capital of the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg) and is populated by about 600,000 inhabitants.

The city and its surroundings are known for the High Tech industry based there. Among the most prominent ones are Daimler-Chrysler, Porsche, Bosch, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, all of whom have their world or German headquarters here. Beside these global players the Stuttgart economy consist out of many highly versatile and dynamic medium-sized enterprises (the so called "Mittelstand"). Approx. 150,000 companies are located in the Stuttgart Region.

The region currently has Germany’s highest density of scientific, academic and research organisations, and tops the national league for patent applications. More than 11% of all R&D-expenses in the Federal Republic of Germany are generated in the Stuttgart Region. Expenses of industrial R&D can be estimated to approximately 4.3 billion Euro per year. In addition to industrial R&D facilities, the Stuttgart Region has six institutes of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, four institutes for collaborative industrial research at local universities, two Max-Planck institutes, as well as one large-scale research centre – the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).

Stuttgart tops the rangkings of all European Union regions according to the share of employment in high-tech and medium-high tech manufacturing with a figure of 21.0% (2001 data from Eurostat).

Stuttgart is also known for its cultural life, in particular the Staatstheater[?] and Staatsgalerie[?]. The Stuttgarter Staatstheater[?] consists of the opera, ballet, theater and concert departments. The Stuttgart opera is considered to be one of the major operas worldwide and has won the highly recognized "Opera of the year" ("Opernhaus des Jahres") award in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. The Stuttgart ballet is world famous and connected to names like John Cranko[?] and Marcia Haydée[?].

Stuttgart also got a reputation for organizing major sports events (for example the athletics world championships in 1993) and its swabian cuisine[?], beer and wine (which is produced in the area since the 1600s).

Twice yearly a visitor may attend the "Cannstatter-Wasen" which is a famous local beer festival which is only second in size to the world famous Oktoberfest in Munich.

External link

• Official homepage of Stuttgart (http://www.stuttgart.de)
• Official Stuttgart Tourist Board (http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de)
• Stuttgarter Staatstheater official site (http://www.staatstheater.stuttgart.de)
• University of Stuttgart official site (http://www.uni-stuttgart.de)