Hauptinhalt

Marburg loves to welcome you!

The tranquil town of Marburg is best known for its university. It was founded in 1527 by Landgrave Philipp the Magnanimous. This makes us the oldest still registered Protestant university in the world! Almost 22,000 students study here - that's 28% of the entire city population (78,000 inhabitants in total).

For this reason, Marburg is known for its progressive lifestyle, innovative urban planning and community projects - but it also has the highest density of pubs in Hesse. In the well-known "Oberstadt", you are greeted by medieval flair. The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, who also studied here, characterise the cityscape. If you go for a walk in Marburg, look out for glass slippers, the wolf and the seven little goats and Iron Henry.

If you want to feel like a real „Marburger“, relax on the meadows along the Lahn in summer. The 245 km long river meanders right through the city centre and offers many opportunities to relax and do sports, especially in the summertime. Pedal boating, ice cream and relaxing in one of the restaurants on the banks are just some of the ways to enjoy Marburg's very own beach.

For those who prefer a more historical approach, there are plenty of opportunities to join a guided tour. On a „Munkel-Tour“, the tour guide will tell you one or two facts about the old town - whether these are true or false is up to the group to find out. At night, you can also join a guided tour with a night watchman in historical costume. Less event-enthusiastic visitors can also explore the Elisabeth Church, the Landgrave's Castle or the old university building on their own, all of which have a long tradition.

Among the most famous professors and alumni of our university are the political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt, writer Bettina von Arnim, pioneer of the women's movement and women's rights activist Luise Berthold, as well as the first Nobel Prize winner for medicine Emil von Behring and chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. Between 1901 and 2011, 11 people associated with Philipps University through their studies or teaching were honoured with a Nobel Prize.

Georg Wenker also deserves special mention in the field of linguistics. From 1888 until his death, Wenker was head of the Research Institute for the German Language at the University of Marburg and founded the Language Atlas of the German Empire, also known as the Wenker Atlas, from which today's German Language Atlas Research Centre emerged. By 1880, he had compiled the 40 Wenker sentences named after him, which he then had teachers from all over the German Empire translate into their local dialects.

If you would like to get a first impression of Marburg in advance, you should take a look at the impressive photographs on the Instagram account "Mattis Underhill" of a Marburg student: https://www.instagram.com/mattisunderhill/