Frankfurt

Frankfurt is a city in Germany. A river called the Main flows through it.

Old houses with pointed roofs stand in the middle. Very tall glass towers rise behind them.

Frankfurt am Main, "Frankfurt on the Main," is a city in the German state of Hesse. The River Main runs through it, and people walk, play and take boat trips along its banks.

Frankfurt is known as a center of banking and money, and the European Central Bank has its seat here. Germany's Federal Statistical Office counted 760,656 people living in the city on 31 December 2025, and many more live in the towns around it.

Frankfurt am Main lies in the state of Hesse, at the center of a wider metropolitan area that includes Offenbach, Hanau, Wiesbaden and Mainz. It is a banking and financial center and the seat of the European Central Bank, with a busy international airport.

The Federal Statistical Office's municipal directory, based on the 2022 census, gives Frankfurt 760,656 inhabitants on 31 December 2025, on an area of 248.31 km², or about 3,063 people per square kilometer.

Frankfurt's old city hall is called the Römer. It has pointed roofs that look like steps.

Nearby, a big church has a very tall tower. People can climb 328 steps to the top!

Since 1405, Frankfurt's city hall has been the Römer, two old houses the city council bought instead of building a new hall. It is still the seat of the Lord Mayor. Close by stands St Bartholomew's Cathedral, whose west tower, almost 95 meters tall, was already rising in the 15th century. Visitors who climb its 328 steps look out over the old town and the skyscrapers.

The Main Tower is one of those skyscrapers: 200 meters tall, or 240 meters with its antenna. Its viewing terrace, 187 meters up, gives a view of the whole region.

In 1405 the city council decided to buy two existing houses, the "Römer" and the "Goldener Schwan," rather than build a new town hall; the complex, which once had 13 buildings, has housed Frankfurt's town hall ever since and is still the seat of the Lord Mayor. Its Kaisersaal, or Emperor's Hall, was built around 1612.

St Bartholomew's is a late Gothic hall church, the fourth place of worship on its site, whose predecessors go back to a Merovingian chapel of the 7th century. Strictly speaking it was never a cathedral, because Frankfurt was never a bishop's seat. Its almost 95 m west tower earned it the nickname "Frankfurt's first skyscraper." The newer skyline includes the Main Tower, opened in 1999 after three years of construction: 56 stories, 200 m (240 m with the antenna), with a public terrace at 187 m. Frankfurt Tourism describes it as, at the time, the first high-rise in Europe with a fully glazed facade.

In Frankfurt, trains run under the streets. Trams run on the streets, too.

People cross the river on a bridge just for walking. Boats take visitors along the river.

Frankfurt's first underground railway route opened in 1968, between Nordwestzentrum and Hauptwache in the city center. A second route opened in 1974 as a tunnel for trams, and in 1984 the first line was extended to the south bank of the Main. Trams and S-Bahn suburban trains carry people across the city and region as well.

To cross the river on foot, people use the Eiserner Steg, a footbridge with views of the Main and the skyline. Boat trips on the river show the city from the water.

UrbanRail.net describes Frankfurt's "U-Bahn" as a typical German Stadtbahn: built to full metro standards in the center, with level crossings and even street running further out. Its oldest underground route opened in 1968 between Nordwestzentrum and Hauptwache and reached the south bank of the Main in 1984. The second trunk route, opened in 1974 as a tram tunnel between Konstablerwache and the central station, began running as a full U-Bahn in 1980. An S-Bahn tunnel was built through the city center in the 1980s and 1990s, and a tram network runs alongside both.

The Eiserner Steg footbridge links the two banks near the old town. The Frankfurt Card gives discounts on public transport and museum tickets, and Frankfurt Airport has a visitor center where children can learn about aviation.

Frankfurt has many museums by the river. One museum has huge dinosaur skeletons!

There is a big garden full of plants from all over the world, and a zoo with lots of animals.

Along the Main, the Museum Embankment lines up museums side by side, among them the Städel art museum and the German Film Museum. Children can see dinosaur skeletons at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History, and the Palmengarten's greenhouses hold plants from all of the world's climate zones. Children and teenagers up to 17 get into the city's own museums for free.

Frankfurt's own drink is apple wine, served in apple wine pubs, and at Christmastime people eat sweet marzipan treats called Bethmännchen. Every autumn the city holds the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Museum Embankment along the Main gathers the Städel Museum, the German Film Museum and other venues within a short distance, while the museum quarter around the New Old Town includes the Historical Museum, the Schirn Kunsthalle and the MMK Museum of Modern Art. The Senckenberg Museum of Natural History is known for its dinosaur skeletons, and the Palmengarten is the city's botanical garden. Municipal museums are free for young people up to and including age 17.

Local specialties include apple wine, Handkäs mit Musik (small sour-milk cheeses marinated with onions and caraway) and Bethmännchen marzipan biscuits. The Frankfurt Book Fair is the literary highlight of the autumn, and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is awarded every year in St Paul's Church. In 1844 Heinrich Hoffmann, a Frankfurt doctor, created the book character Shock-Haired Peter (Struwwelpeter), remembered in a museum in the New Old Town.