Ulm

Ulm (German pronunciation: [ʊlm] ^ⓘ) is the sixth-largest city of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with around 129,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 60th-largest city.

Ulm is located on the eastern edges of the Swabian Jura mountain range, on the upper course of the River Danube, at the confluence with the small Blau Stream, coming from the Blautopf in the west. The mouth of the Iller also falls within Ulm's city limits. The Danube forms the border with Bavaria, where Ulm's twin city Neu-Ulm lies. The city was part of Ulm until 1810, and Ulm and Neu-Ulm have a combined population of around 190,000. Ulm forms an urban district of its own (Stadtkreis Ulm), and is the administrative seat of the Alb-Donau-Kreis, the district that surrounds it on three sides, but which the city itself is not a part of. Ulm is the overall 11th-largest city on the river Danube, and the third-largest German Danubian city after Regensburg and Ingolstadt.

Founded around 850, Ulm is rich in history and traditions as a former free imperial city. Ulm is an economic centre due to its varied industries, and is the seat of the University of Ulm (Universität Ulm), and of the Ulm University of Applied Sciences (Technische Hochschule Ulm [de], THU). The city lies on the international railway corridor "Main Line for Europe", from Paris to Bratislava and Budapest, via Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm, Augsburg, Munich, Salzburg, Linz and Vienna. The Ulm Minster (Ulmer Münster) is the tallest church in the world (161.53 m or 529.95 ft).

In 1927, the then tiny village of Wiblingen was incorporated into Ulm, which led to that Wiblingen Abbey with its monastic library and its True Cross reliquary (Heilig-Kreuz-Reliquie), that allegedly contains wood particles from the True Cross, is now part of Ulm.

Famous personalities born in Ulm include Johann Georg Niederegger [de] (1777–1859), Karl Heinrich Kässbohrer [de] (1864–1922), Albert Einstein (1879–1955), Otto Kässbohrer (1904–1989), Hildegard Knef (1925–2002) and Ursula Karven (b.1964).

Ulm lies at the point where the rivers Blau and Iller join the Danube, at an altitude of 479 m (1,571.52 ft) above sea level. Most parts of the city, including the old town, are situated on the northern bank of the Danube; only the districts of Wiblingen, Gögglingen, Donaustetten and Unterweiler lie on the southern bank. Across from the old town, on the other side of the river, lies the twin city of Neu-Ulm in the state of Bavaria, smaller than Ulm and, until 1810, a part of it (population c. 50,000).

Except for the Danube in the south, the city is surrounded by forests and hills which rise to altitudes of over 620 metres (2,034.12 feet), some of them part of the Swabian Alb. South of the Danube, plains and hills finally end in the northern edge of the Alps, which are approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Ulm and are visible from the city on clear days.

The city of Ulm is situated in the northern part of the North Alpine Foreland basin, where the basin reaches the Swabian Alb. The Turritellenplatte of Ermingen ("Erminger Turritellenplatte") is a famous palaeontological site of Burdigalian age.