Paderborn
Paderborn can look back on a history of more than 1,200 years. Following his victory over the Saxons, Charlemagne assembled the first Franconian Imperial Diet in the Saxonian territory in 777 in Paderborn. In 799, Charlemagne and Pope Leo III convened in Paderborn's Imperial Palace to negotiate the formalities for the founding of the Carolingian Empire. Here in Paderborn the first Westphalian university was established in 1614, although it was all but dissolved by the Prussian state at the beginning of the 19th century.
Besides the old city of Paderborn, the surrounding countryside and a wide range of cultural attractions, the city's appeal is also shaped by business and industry. A number of global industrial corporations have their head office in Paderborn. Besides the computer and electrical industries, Paderborn's business profile excels in mechanical engineering, machine tool and structural steel engineering, furniture making and food processing. Paderborn is also home to a major supplier to the automobile industry.
The attractions of the countryside around Paderborn include the nearby Teutoburger Forest/Egge Hills as well as the new recreational park located between the centre of Paderborn and Schloss Neuhaus. The Park was formed during the State Horticultural Show in Paderborn in 1994. Apart from wealth of cultural features, Paderborn also offers generous sports and leisure opportunities.
The city's cultural highlights include a theatre house, several museums, a vibrant art scene and plenty of music. "Musica sacra", a music festival currently held on a biennial basis, presents superlative spiritual musics and has made a name for itself beyond the regional boundaries.
The Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum (HNF), the world's largest computer museum located in the immediate vincinity of the university's Fürstenallee facility, is known far beyond the city walls of Paderborn, at home and abroad. In the early 1990s the new Heinz Nixdorf Institute advanced Paderborn into one of Germany's leading universities in the field of computer science and applications in mechanical and electrical engineering and business computing.