Bonn (Latin: Bonna) is a city near Cologne. It is in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Bonn was founded on an old Roman settlement. Today it has about 327,000 inhabitants.

Following World War II Bonn was in the British occupation zone. In 1949 Bonn was chosen as the provisional capital of West Germany.

Bonn was the choice of Konrad Adenauer, a former Cologne Mayor and the first Chancellor of West Germany after World War II, who came from that area. Frankfurt am Main had most of the needed facilities already, so using Bonn meant spending about 95 Million DM to building new roads and building. However, Frankfurt am Main had been an important city during the war, and choosing Bonn was to symbolise a new start for the new Germany.

Because of its relatively small size for a capital city, Bonn was sometimes jokingly called the Bundesdorf (Federal Village).

Bonn was the capital of West Germany from 1949 until 1990 it. The Bundestag voted to move to Berlin on 20 June 1991, after a heated debate. The Federal President had already decided to make Schloß Bellevue in Berlin his main official residence. The extra building work needed meant it was 1999 before the government's move was completed.

Main sights 

Beethoven's birthplace is located at Bonngasse. Next to the market place is the Old Town Hall, built in 1737 in Rococo style, under the rule of Clemens August of Bavaria. It's used for receptions of guests of the town, and as a bureau for the mayor. Close by is the Kurfürstliches Schloss, which has been built as a residence of the prince-elector, and nowadays is the main building of the University of Bonn.

The Poppelsdorfer Allee, an alley flanked by chestnut trees, connects the Kurfürstliches Schloss with the Poppelsdorfer Schloss, a palace that was built as a resort to prince-electors in the first half of the 18th century. This axis is interrupted by a railway line and Bonn Central Station, a building erected in 1883/84.

The three highest buildings in the city are the radio mast of WDR in Bonn-Venusberg (180 m), the headquarters of the Deutsche Post called Post Tower (162.5 m) and the former building for the German members of parliament Langer Eugen (114.7 m) which nowadays is the new location of the UN-Campus.

Churches 
 Bonn Minster  
 Doppelkirche (Double Church) Schwarzrheindorf built in 1151
 Old Cemetery Bonn, one of the best known ones in Germany

Castles and residences 
 Godesburg fortress ruins

Modern buildings 
 Bundesviertel (federal quarter) with lots of government structures including
 Post Tower, the tallest building in the state North Rhine-Westphalia, housing the headquarters of the Deutsche Post AG
 Deutsche Telekom headquarters
 T-Mobile headquarters
 Maritim Bonn, 5 star hotel and convention centre
 Schürmann-Bau, headquarters of Deutsche Welle
 Langer Eugen, since 2006 the centre of the United Nations Campus, formerly housing the offices of the members of the German parliament

Museums 
 Museum Mile with
 Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) showing the Guggenheim Collection in 2006-2007  
 Kunstmuseum Bonn (Bonn Museum of Modern Art) 
 Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Museum of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany) 
 Museum Koenig where the Parlamentarischer Rat first met
 Beethoven House, birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven  
 Ägyptisches Museum (Egyptian Museum)  
 Akademisches Kunstmuseum (Academic Museum of Art)  
 Arithmeum, research institute for discrete mathematics including a museum  
 Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (Rhinish Regional Museum Bonn)

Universities 
 The Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (University of Bonn) is one of the largest universities in Germany
 Bonn Universities are located mainly in downtown Bonn, but some buildings are spread throughout the city. As such Bonn is known as the city of Universities.

Schools 
 Aloisiuskolleg, a Jesuit private school in Bad Godesberg

Nature 
 Botanischer Garten (Botanical Garden), where Titan arum reached a world record
 Rheinaue (Bonn), a leisure park on the banks of the Rhine
 Rhine promenade and the Alter Zoll (Old Toll Station)
 In the very south of the city on the border to Wachtberg and Rhineland-Palatinate is the extinct volcano Rodderberg

Twin towns 
 Bonn
  Oxford, since 1947
  Tel Aviv-Jaffa, since 1983
  Potsdam, since 1988
  Budafok, District XII of Budapest since 1991
  Opole, (officially since 1997; contacts were established 1954)
  Belfast, Northern Ireland
 district of Bad Godesberg
  Saint-Cloud,
  Frascati,
  Windsor and Maidenhead
  Kortrijk
  Yalova
 district of Beuel
  Mirecourt
 district of Hardtberg
  Villemomble
  Islamabad-Rawalpindi
  Toronto
  Bhubaneswar

References

Other websites 
 Official Website  
 Official timeline  
 Tourist information 
 "The Museum Mile" 
 Germany's Museum of Art in Bonn 

Cities in North Rhine-Westphalia