Sopron was an important town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the World War I it became part of Austria. But the townspeople were not happy with this and in December 1921 they voted that the city should be part of Hungary. Since that day the city has been called "Civitas Fidelissima", ("The Most Loyal Town" which in Hungarian is "A Leghűségesebb Város"). A holiday is held every year to celebrate.
In World War II Sopron suffered badly. It was bombed several times. There were many Jewish people living in Sopron before the war. The Nazis and their Hungarian allies sent the Jews of Sopron to death camps and killed nearly all of them, as well as other people who disagreed with Nazi ideas.
The Soviet Red Army captured the city on April 1, 1945. Sopron, as part of Hungary, was ruled by a Socialist government. At this time many factories were built around Sopron. The Socialist government took away a lot of the freedom that people had. In August 1989, in Sopron there was a big protest against the Socialist government, which was called the "Pan-European Picnic". While this was happening more than 200 people who lived in East Germany (which was Socialist) escaped to the West. This was the beginning of a big change for all the Socialist countries of Europe. People who had not been allowed to travel or live in other countries were finally allowed to be free.
Hungary is now part of the European Union. Sopron now has trade with other countries, most importantly Austria. There are many German-speaking people who live in Sopron so most street signs are written in both Hungarian and German.
The city of Sopron shows signs of its long history in its buildings. There are still walls and foundations from the Ancient Roman times and also building from the Middle Ages. The medieval Kecske Church ("Goat Church") was where coronations (crowning kings) and parliament took place. There is also a very old Jewish synagogue.
Many old buildings whose architecture are from the 1600s and 1700s and are in the Baroque style which often has a lot of decoration. Stornó House is one of the most well-known buildings, because of its elegant Baroque architecture, its connection with King Matthias and its interesting collection. There is also a famous statue of the Holy Trinity from this time. the "Várkerület" is part of the city built where the ancient moat was; The inner row of houses follow the line of the castle wall. Várkerület has a famous Maria Statue. The Town Hall built in 1896 and the Ursuline Church is an important building in the Gothic Revival style.
Sopron is popular as a holiday place because it is set in beautiful countryside where people like to walk in the hills, enjoying the pure air, the forests and mountain springs. There are many hiking paths and look-out towers. Near to Sopron is Lake Fertő.
The Löverek, is a beautiful hilly area south of the city, with forests of spruce, oaks and chestnut trees. The flowers that bloom there include "Lily of the Valley" and cyclamens.
Sopron is a wine producing region, that is one of the few in Hungary to make both red and white wines. The grapes grown here include Kékfrankos for red wine and Traminer (Gewürztraminer) for white wine. In climate it is similar to the Burgenland wine region nearby in Austria, and several winemakers make wine in both countries.
MFC Sopron is a football team based in Sopron.
Sumo
In sumo, a wrestler ("rikishi") attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohyō) 4.55 metres in diameter. Also, the "rikishi" try to use their skill to force an opponent to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of his feet.
Sumo tournaments ("basho") take place in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. There are a total of 6 major professional tournaments (known as "honbasho") per year, in January, March, May, July, September and November.
A tournament normally lasts for 15 days and features matches from different divisions. The top 5 ranks are known as the "Top division", also called the "Makuuchi" (幕内) or "Makunouchi" (幕の内). It is fixed in size and always contains 42 "rikishi".
The ranks included in the top division are yokozuna, ozeki, sekiwake, komusubi and maegashira.
Sumo wrestlers ("rikishi") are ranked into a hierarchy based on win-loss statistics in competitive tournaments.
Those who have earned the highest rank are grand champions ("yokuzuna").
For a full list of those rikishi who have held the title of "Yokozuna", see List of yokozuna.
Sumo has changed in modern times. Foreign-born wrestlers are part of the sport. For example, Konishiki and Akebono are Hawaiian-born athletes who earned places for themselves.
In 2008, Kotooshu from Bulgaria won a championship. In that same year, two top wrestlers, Asashoryu and Hakuho, were Mongolian. Hakuho won the Nagoya tournament with no losses, 15-0.
List of German districts
Germany is divided into 402 administrative districts. These consist of 295 rural districts ("Landkreise"), listed fully here, and 107 urban districts ("Kreisfreie Städte" / "Stadtkreise") - cities which constitute a district in their own right.
Bremen (state)
Bremen is the smallest state in Germany. It is a city-state with an area of . Bremen has a population of 664,000 people.
The official name is "Freie Hansestadt Bremen". This is because Bremen used to be in the "Hanseatic League" which was a group of cities which did a lot of trading. Many goods were sent from the port of Bremen or bought from the port from other countries. "Free" means it was independent of the local dukes and princes.
There are two cities that make up Bremen. These cities are Bremen and Bremerhaven. The local football club is named Werder Bremen.
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt (, (; Low German: ) is a Bundesland (state) in Germany. It has an area of . 2,580,626 people live there. The capital is Magdeburg.
Some big cities and towns in Saxony-Anhalt are:
Erfurt
Erfurt is the capital city of the German state of Thuringia. It has an area of . In December 2015 it had a population of 210,000 people. The River Gera runs through the city.
People have lived in the area for about 100,000 years. The city was first mentioned in writing in 742, in a letter to the Pope from St Boniface. St Boniface established Christianity in the area. He set up a church in Erfurt in 742. Erfurt Cathedral was later built on the same site.
The city is in the centre of Germany. It was on the Via Regia, a medieval trade road network that stretched across Europe. It became an important trading centre in the Middle Ages. Erfurt was a member of the Hanseatic League, an alliance of trade associations and market towns. It was also famous for producing woad. Blue indigo dye is made from the woad plant.
Erfurt is on the Way of St. James pilgrams' path (Spanish: "Camino de Santigo"; German: "Jakobsweg"). In the Middle Ages a number of monasteries were set up in the city. Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation, lived at St. Augustine's Monastery from 1505 until 1511. A famous philosopher and theologian called Meister Eckhart lived at the Dominican Monastery from about 1275 until 1311.
The city was part of the Holy Roman Empire. It became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1802. From 1949 until 1990 Erfurt was in the communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
Modern day Erfurt is a transport hub for high speed trains and other German and European transport networks. This makes logistics one of its main industries. Other important industries are agriculture, horticulture and microelectronics.
The German Federal Labour Court (German:"Bundesarbeitsgericht") is in Erfurt.
The University of Erfurt was first set up in 1379. It closed in 1816, but was reopened in 1994. Martin Luther studied there from 1501 to 1505. It is also thought that Johannes Gutenberg, who developed the printing press, enrolled there in 1418. Erfurt also has a "Fachhochschule", a University of Applied Sciences.