Aachen

People were drawn to Aachen's warm mineral springs as early as the Neolithic, and Iron Age Celts worshipped Grannus, a god of light and healing, at the hot sulphur springs in the marshy basin. The Romans channelled the springs into baths in the 1st century AD, and their spa town took the name Aquae Granni, the waters of Grannus; the baths were destroyed around 375 at the start of the migration period. Pepin the Short built a residence here, and Charlemagne spent most winters in Aachen from 792 until his death in 814. His palace, completed around the turn of the 9th century, made it the main royal residence of the Frankish Empire, and he was buried in his palace chapel.

From 936, when Otto I was crowned there, until 1531, thirty-one German kings were crowned in Charlemagne's chapel. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa granted city rights in 1166, making Aachen an imperial city, and in 1330 the town hall replaced the old audience hall. When the coronations moved to Frankfurt, the springs kept the town prosperous as a spa where Handel, Dürer, Voltaire and Peter the Great took the waters. The Peace of Lunéville gave Aachen to France in 1801. Under Prussia it industrialised, merged with Burtscheid in 1897 and passed 100,000 inhabitants in 1890.

Two air raids in April and May 1944 devastated the city, and in autumn 1944 it was besieged by American forces from 12 September until the German garrison surrendered on 21 October; only about 4,000 inhabitants remained. After the war the city looked to Europe: the Charlemagne Prize for service to European unity has been awarded here since 1950, and in 1978 the cathedral was the first German monument entered on the World Heritage list. RWTH Aachen has since made the city a technology hub.

Charlemagne is the city's founding figure and its emblem. His chapel at the heart of the cathedral and his shrine are the main draw for visitors, the treasury holds one of Europe's finest collections of medieval church art, and the town hall, where the Charlemagne Prize is presented each year, is a station on the Route Charlemagne, a programme presenting the city's historic sites. The prize, given for work toward European unification, reflects a city that sees itself as European as much as German.

Aachen sits where three countries meet, and the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands run through its outskirts. Its French name, Aix-la-Chapelle, recalls Charlemagne's chapel; its own dialect is Öcher Platt, a Ripuarian speech in which the city is called Oche. The spa tradition survives in the thermal springs of the centre and Burtscheid, more than thirty in all.

Sport means horses and football. The CHIO, held each summer, is the world's biggest equestrian event and is spoken of by riders as the Wimbledon of showjumping. Alemannia Aachen, whose old Tivoli stadium was famous for its atmosphere, now play in the New Tivoli in the Soers, opened in 2009. The Christmas market around the cathedral and the town hall draws visitors from across the border regions every December.

About 261,000 people lived in Aachen in mid-2025, and the wider Städteregion Aachen, formed in 2009, has about 580,000. Aachen has been Germany's westernmost large city since it passed 100,000 inhabitants in 1890. Many foreign residents are students, and the city lies in the cross-border Meuse–Rhine Euroregion, with neighbouring towns in Belgian Liège province and Dutch Limburg.

RWTH Aachen University dominates working life. One of Germany's leading technical universities, it is known especially for mechanical engineering, automotive and manufacturing technology, and has spun off a cluster of technology firms. Its university hospital, the Uniklinikum, is Europe's largest single-building hospital. Students set the tone of the Pontviertel and much of the centre in term time.

The rhythm of the city is that of a mid-sized university town: shoppers and students in the pedestrian streets by day and the bars of Pontstraße by night, with Maastricht and the Dutch and Belgian border towns close at hand. The Lousberg and the forests to the south provide green space close to the centre.

Aachen's best-known speciality is Aachener Printen, a type of Lebkuchen. Unlike most German gingerbread, which is sweetened with honey, Printen are now generally sweetened with a syrup made from sugar beets, and they were originally hard, baked in large flat loaves. The name is a protected geographical indication, so all makers must be in or near Aachen. Bakeries around the cathedral, among them Nobis on Münsterplatz and Klein on Krämerstraße, are known for them.

The student city keeps food cheap. Pontstraße, between the market square and the Ponttor, is the street students prefer for snack bars and light meals, with grills and restaurants, Turkish and Japanese among them, and the Frankenberger Viertel, an alternative quarter in the south, is known for its Turkish and Arab diners.

The market square, facing the Gothic town hall, has restaurants and café tables that spill onto the cobbles in fine weather, and from late November to 23 December the Christmas market fills the Katschhof, the Münsterplatz and the square itself with stalls.