Göttingen Travel Guide
A detailed destination guide for your next Germany vacation
Göttingen Overview
Göttingen is a college town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.
The origins of Göttingen lay in a village called Gutingi. This village was first mentioned in a document in 953. The city was founded between 1150 and 1200 to the northwest of this village and adopted its name. In medieval times the city was a member of the Hanseatic League and hence a wealthy town.
Today Göttingen is famous for its old university (Georgia Augusta, or "Georg-August-Universität"), which was founded in 1737 and became the most visited university of Europe. In 1837 seven professors protested against the absolute sovereignty of the kings of Hanover; they lost their offices, but became known as the "Göttingen Seven". They include some well-known celebrities: the Brothers Grimm, Heinrich Ewald, Wilhelm Weber and Georg Gervinus. Also, German chancellors Otto von Bismarck and Gerhard Schröder went to law school at the Göttingen university. Karl Barth had his first professorship here. Some of the most famous mathematicians in history, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Bernhard Riemann and David Hilbert were professors at Göttingen.
Like other university towns, Göttingen has developed its own folklore. On the day of their doctorate, postgraduate students are drawn in handcarts from the Great Hall to the Gänseliesel-Fountain in front of the Old Town Hall. There they have to climb the fountain and kiss the statue of the Gänseliesel (Goose girl). This practice is actually forbidden by law, but the law is not at all enforced. She is considered to be the most-kissed girl in the world. The impressive lion statues which stand nearby at the steps of the town hall are celebrated in Stephen Clackson's Märchen Die Traurigen Löwen von Göttingen
set eight years after the foundation of the University.
Nearly untouched by Allied bombing in World War II (the informal understanding during the war was that Germany wouldn't bomb Cambridge and Oxford and the Allies wouldn't bomb Heidelberg (Heidelberg vacation rentals | Heidelberg travel guide) and Göttingen), the inner city of Göttingen is now an attractive place to live with many shops, cafes and bars. For this reason, many university students live in the inner city and give Göttingen a young face. In 2003, 45% of the inner city population was only between 18 and 30 years of age.
Economically, Göttingen is noted for its production of optical and fine mechanical machinery, including the light microscopy division of Carl Zeiss, Inc. - the region around Göttingen advertises itself as Measurement Valley
. Unemployment in Göttingen was at 12.6% (2003).
The city's railway station to the west of the city center is on Germany's main north-south railway.
Göttingen has two professional basketball teams; both the men's and women's teams play in the Basketball-Bundesliga. For the 2007/2008 season both teams will play in the 1st division.
Where to stay in Göttingen?
Check out our selection of hand-selected and quality Göttingen vacation rentals and holiday apartments.
Cultural establishments
Theater
Göttingen has two professional theaters, Deutsches Theater in Göttingen and Junges Theater. In addition, there is ThOP (Theater im OP Göttingen ), a stage that mostly presents student productions.
Museums, collections, exhibitions
- The Göttingen City Museum (Städtisches Museum Göttingen) has permanent and temporary exhibitions of historical and artistic materials.
- The Ethnographic Collection of the University includes an internationally significant South Seas exhibition (Cook/Forster collection) and mostly 19th-century materials from the Arctic polar region (Baron von Asch collection) as well as major displays on Africa as its highlights.
- The Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus) has temporary art shows of local, regional, and international artists.
- The Paulinerkirche in the Historical University Library Building has various temporary exhibitions, usually of a historic nature.
The university has a number of significant museums and collections.
Intercultural gardens
Göttingen is home to four intercultural gardens and the German Association of International Gardens (Internationale Gärten e.V.).
[ source: Wikipedia ]
Maps and Driving Directions to Göttingen
Travel Insider Tips for Göttingen
Today's travel tip: Göttingen - is a popular university town in Lower Saxony. It has a rich cultural history, lots of museums, and famous for its old university (Georgia Augusta, or "Georg-August-Universität"), which was founded in 1737 and became the most visited university of Europe ...
Shared by Live Like A German , Jun 2010
Super place to visit, people great as well, i biked down the rhine last year, this year we did the black forest, great country north or south, .....go visit.........
Shared by Del Green, Nov 2009
Göttingen
[ source: Flickr]
Popular Points of Interest in and near Göttingen
Göttingen City Museum
[ source: Museum website ]
Located in the city's only Renaissance palacem the Göttingen City Museum (Städtisches Museum Göttingen) has permanent and temporary exhibitions of historical and artistic materials.
Hours: Tuesday - Friday 10am - 5pm. Saturday and Sunday 11am - 5pm.
Admission: Adults 2 €, Concessions 1 €.
Old Botanical Garden (Alte Botanische Garten) at the University of Göttingen
[ source: Wikipedia ]
The Old Botanical Garden is a historic botanical garden maintained by the University of Göttingen. It is located in the city center in Göttingen and is open daily. The garden was established in 1736 by Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) and gradually extended via adjacent plots within and without the city wall. By 1806 the garden had a tropical greenhouse, orangery, and cycad house; to these were added in 1830 an Araceae greenhouse, and again in 1857 a new orangery (converted in 1910 to a fern house). Although the garden's collection of tropical plants was destroyed in the World War II, it was replenished postwar and augmented by a major collection of wild plants from central Europe. In 1967, as the university's natural science faculty began its relocation to a site north of the city center, two new botanical gardens were there established (the Neuer Botanischer Garten der Universität Göttingen and the Forstbotanischer Garten und Arboretum), but the old garden continues.
Today the garden contains 17,500 accessions representing about 14,000 species, and forms one of the largest and most significant scientific collections of plants in Germany.
Forstbotanischer Garten and Arboretum at Göttingen University
The Forstbotanischer Garten and Pflanzengeographisches Arboretum, often called the Forstbotanischer Garten und Arboretum, is a 40 hectares (99 acres) arboretum and botanical garden maintained by the University of Göttingen. It is adjacent to the New Botanical Garden (Neuer Botanischer Garten der Universität Göttingen), and open to the public daily.
The arboretum dates to 1870 when it was created as a forestry school by the Hannoversch Münden Faculty of Forestry. Over the years it fell into disuse but was revived and substantially modified in 1970 when the forestry education and research facilities were transferred to Göttingen. At that time today's garden and arboretum were begun, with first plantings taking place in Autumn 1970 in the Japan section.
Today the garden and arboretum contain over 2000 species on the forestry school campus. Its major sections include geographic collections of trees from China, Japan, Korea, North America, and the Caucasus, which together represent about 45 genera with 800 species, subspecies, and varieties; the forest botanical garden (7 hectares) which contains about 140 plant genera with about 1100 wild species, subspecies, and varieties; and a tertiary forest area.
European Bread Museum
[ source: Flickr ]
The European Bread Museum in Ebergötzen is a specialist museum and houses the cultural-historical collection, "From Grain to Bread" from the over 8,000-year history and development of agriculture, grain processing and bread. Beginning with the first farmers, the band ceramists from around 5500 BC (Lehmkuppelofen) on Bronze and Iron Age, the Middle Ages and modern times are ultimately exhibits have been collected.
The museum presents its permanent exhibition in the stately former forestry office Spätbarockbau Radolfshausen. The exhibition consists of various topics, such as the history of bread, cereals and flour milling, bread in religion, bread in the arts, culture and customs, and world food and hunger.
Alongside the exhibition there on the large grounds of the corresponding open-air museum after several mills, gardens where cereals are also grown, and three recreated historical ovens.
Related Sites
We collected some useful links related to Göttingen. If you know a few more sites not listed here, or also know some insider tips or point of interests for this destination? Please share and submit your Germany travel tip. If approved it will be shown on this page!
- Homepage of Göttingen: Göttingen (official home page)
- Wikipedia: Göttingen
More about the History of Göttingen
The origins of Göttingen can be traced back to a village named Gutingi to the immediate south-east of the eventual city. The name of the village probably derives from a small creek, called the Gote, that once flowed through it. Since the ending -ing denoted "living by", the name can be understood as "along the Gote".
The original Welf residency in the town consisted of a farm building and stables of the Welf dukes, which occupied the oldest part of the city fortifications built prior to 1250 AD. In its early days, Göttingen got involved in the conflicts of the Welfs with their enemies. The initial conflicts in the first decades of the 13th century benefited the burghers of Göttingen, which could use the political and military situation to be courted by various parties, and hence forcing the Welf town lords to certain compromises with the town. In a document from 1232 AD, Duke Otto the Child gave the citizens of Göttingen the same rights they held at the time of his uncles Otto IV and Henry the Elder of Brunswick. These included privileges concerning self-governance of the town, protection of traders, and the facilitation of trade.
After World War II, the city and district of Göttingen joined the administrative district (Regierungsbezirk) of Hildesheim (Hildesheim vacation rentals | Hildesheim travel guide). In a reform in 1973 the district of Göttingen was enlarged by incorporating the dissolved districts of Duderstadt (Duderstadt vacation rentals | Duderstadt travel guide) and Hannoversch Münden (Hannoversch Münden vacation rentals | Hannoversch Münden travel guide).
What makes this Live Like a German Göttingen Travel Guide special...
This Göttingen travel guide provides you with an overview of Göttingen, Göttingen pictures, and a local travel guide that suggests many special trips, unique activities, and vacation ideas, that you can't find in a typical Germany travel guide.
Some of this information is compiled from popular and well-known sources (e.g., such as Wikipedia, Wikitravel, and great pictures from Flickr). However, what makes this Germany travel guide special is that most of the travel suggestions and insider tips are provided by local residents, property owners, and our readers, who share and submit their travel tips with us. All submissions are then editorially reviewed to ensure high quality. All this information is logically organized within this destination guide to make it easy for you to find things quickly.
In addition, the Göttingen destination guide features restaurant recommendations, restaurant reviews, where to go for grocery shopping, sports activities, getting around, cultural events and highlights, entertainment, and health related information - so you are informed for your travel to Germany, and you can learn about all the cool things you can do during your Germany vacation!
