Mainz

The Roman general Drusus founded the fortress of Mogontiacum on the Kästrich hill around 13–12 BC, at a strategic point opposite the mouth of the Main. It became the capital of the province of Germania Superior and the base of legions and of the Rhine fleet, with the largest theatre north of the Alps, a bridge across the Rhine and a monument to Drusus that drew pilgrims from as far as Lyon. Emperor Severus Alexander was assassinated here in 235, Alemanni and Huns sacked the city, and the Franks took it shortly before 460.

Boniface became its first archbishop, and from 781 the archbishops of Mainz ruled one of the great states of the Holy Roman Empire as archchancellors and prince-electors. A Jewish community from the 10th century made Mainz, with Speyer and Worms, a centre of Talmudic learning, though it suffered massacres in 1096 and 1349 and repeated expulsions. Johannes Gutenberg was born here and developed printing with movable type in the city in the mid-15th century. French revolutionary troops arrived in 1792, and in 1793 local Jacobins proclaimed the short-lived Republic of Mainz before a Prussian siege ended it; the city later came under French rule until 1814.

As a fortress of the German Confederation, Mainz was hemmed in by its walls until the Neustadt was built from 1874. Air raids destroyed about 80 per cent of the city centre in the Second World War, the worst on 27 February 1945. In 1946 the French made Mainz the capital of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate and refounded its university, and a new synagogue opened in 2010.

Carnival — Fastnacht or Fassenacht — defines Mainz more than anything. It grew in the early 19th century as a way of mocking political injustice under the cover of cap and bells; many carnival clubs still parade in uniforms that caricature the French and Prussian soldiers who once garrisoned the city, and more than 500,000 people line the streets for the Rose Monday parade.

Gutenberg is the city's other emblem: the university, refounded in 1946, carries his name, the Gutenberg Museum holds two copies of the Gutenberg Bible, and the Johannisnacht festival has honoured him every June since 1968. The Jewish heritage of the ShUM cities is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Chagall's windows in St. Stephan were conceived as a gesture of reconciliation. The broadcaster ZDF, based in Lerchenberg, and the music publisher Schott give the city a media and music presence.

Mainz is a football town too: 1. FSV Mainz 05 has played in the Bundesliga for most seasons since 2004, and Jürgen Klopp, who spent most of his playing career at the club and managed it for seven years, is remembered with affection. The local dialect calls the city Meenz, and the rivalry with Wiesbaden, the Hessian capital across the Rhine that took three of Mainz's right-bank districts in 1945, still runs through local banter.

Mainz had 224,684 residents at the end of 2024, making it the largest city in Rhineland-Palatinate, and it forms a twin centre of about half a million people with Wiesbaden across the river, inside the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region. The city is divided into 15 districts, from the old town and the 19th-century Neustadt to suburbs such as Gonsenheim, Bretzenheim and Hechtsheim and the media district of Lerchenberg.

As the state capital it is full of ministries and public offices, and the Johannes Gutenberg University and other colleges give it a large student population. Schott, one of the world's largest glassmakers, and BioNTech, founded here in 2008 and the developer of a COVID-19 vaccine, are the best-known companies, and the container port to the north is Germany's fifth-largest intermodal port. Mainz is also a wine trading centre, home of the House of German Wine and a member of the Great Wine Capitals network.

Market mornings around the cathedral are a fixture, with winegrowers selling their wines on Saturdays, and in summer the Rhine promenade, the city's main outdoor leisure area, fills with people.

Mainz eats in the wine tavern. Its classic snack is Spundekäs, a cream-cheese preparation from northern Rheinhessen, made from cream cheese and creamy quark and served with chopped onions, usually with a glass of white wine. Handkäs mit Musik is the sharper option — a small, pungent sour-milk cheese marinated in vinegar and oil with onions and scattered with caraway seeds. The local formula for a good time is 'Weck, Worscht un Woi': a bread roll, a sausage and a glass of wine, a meal common across the wine regions around the city.

The weekly farmers' market around the cathedral on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays is a fixture of city life, and on Saturdays local winegrowers sell their bottles there. Taverns in the old town around Augustinerstraße and the Kirschgarten serve regional dishes alongside local wines.

Wine runs through the city's history. Bishop Boniface acquired a vineyard by the city wall in 752, and Mainz is the largest city of Rheinhessen, one of Germany's most important wine regions. The sparkling-wine houses Kupferberg and Henkell were founded here, the Sichel family marketed Blue Nun, one of the first branded wines, from the city, and Johann-Joseph Krug, founder of the Krug champagne house, was born in Mainz in 1800. The Mainzer Weinmarkt in late summer is one of the country's great wine fairs.