Luxembourg is a country in Western Europe; its official name is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (, , ). It is a small country in land area. It was one of the first countries in the European Union. It is also a member of the Benelux. The countries next to Luxembourg are Belgium, Germany, and France. In 2015, its population was 569,700, making it one of Europe's most densely populated countries.
Luxembourg is a parliamentary democracy lead by a constitutional monarch. Under the constitution of 1868, executive power is in the hands of the Governor and the cabinet, which consists of several other ministers.
Luxembourg is divided into 3 districts, which are further divided into 12 cantons and then 116 communes. Twelve of the communes have city status, of which the city of Luxembourg is the largest.
The districts are
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (, ; Alemannic German: "Baade-Wiirdebäärg") is a federal state ("Bundesland") in the southwestern region of Germany. It is the third largest German state by total area (after Bavaria and Lower Saxony) with a size of nearly 35,752 km² and population (after North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria) with over 11 million people as of 2017. It shares borders to the east with the state of Bavaria, to the north with the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, to the west with the country of France (along the river Rhine), and to the south with the countries of Switzerland and Austria. Its biggest cities are Stuttgart, the capital, Mannheim, and Karlsruhe. The Minister President is Winfried Kretschmann of the party "Alliance '90/The Greens".
In 2017, Baden-Württemberg ranked 2 on the Human Development Index (HDI) among all states in Germany.
In 1952, the three states of Baden, Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern joined together to found Baden-Württemberg.
The Minister President is the chief of the government of Baden-Württemberg. The government is made up of ministers and state secretaries.
The CDU was the main political party in the state between 1953-2011, the Ministers President have all been members of the CDU. Between the years 1972 and 1992, the members of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg were mostly members of the CDU. But the state is also a stronghold of the "Grünen" which were founded in the early 1980s in Karlsruhe. The election results of the Grünen in Baden-Württemberg have always been above the election average for the party in Germany.
Since 2016 there have been 5 parties represented in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg:
List of Ministers President since 1952:
The Black forest, the Swabian Alb and the Lake Constance are world famous holiday regions. The highest mountain is the Feldberg (1492m).
Other important cities for tourism in Baden-Württemberg besides the capital city of Stuttgart are: Freiburg, Heidelberg, Rastatt, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Ulm, Ravensburg and Heilbronn.
The Danube, the Neckar and the Rhine are important rivers which are in the state.
Baden-Württemberg has the third largest economy in Germany after the economies of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria. It had a gross regional product (GRP) of €524.33 billion in 2019.
In the northern part of Württemberg and the Kurpfalz the majority are Protestants. But the other parts of the state, especially the south, the majority are Roman Catholics.
Statistics for Baden-Württemberg:
Football is the most popular sport in Baden-Württemberg. The best clubs are the VfB Stuttgart and the Karlsruher SC (Karlsruher SC or KSC). Another popular sport is handball.
Vienna
Vienna (; ; Central Austro-Bavarian: "Wean", Viennese German: "Wian") is the capital and largest city of Austria.
It is in the east of the country on the river Danube. More than 1,800,000 people live there (2016). It is an administrative district ("Bundesland") of its own.
Before World War I, it was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The history of the city goes back to the Roman Empire. The Romans started a military camp called Vindobona. The camp was in today's first district on the Danube river. The name came from the Celts, so there was probably a Celtic settlement before the Roman invasion. The Romans stayed until the 5th century. In medieval times, the settlement was still in use. The present name was mentioned in 881 in the Salzburger Annalen, where a battle "ad weniam" is mentioned.
In 976 the House of Babenberg became rulers of the area. They made Vienna their capital in 1155. Vienna was already an important city. In 1156, Austria became a Duchy, and Vienna was where the Duke who ruled the Duchy lived. In 1221, Vienna got municipal rights. It Is the second oldest city in Austria (Enns, in Upper Austria, is the oldest).
In 1278, the Duchy came to the Habsburg family. Rudolf IV started the university in 1365 and while he was duke the nave of the Gothic St. Stephan's Cathedral was built. Quarrels within the Hapsburg family caused an economic decline in Vienna. In 1438, Vienna became the residence of the Holy Roman Emperor.
During the time of the reformation Vienna was a Protestant city, but in the times of the Counter Reformation, Austria and Vienna were mostly Roman Catholic.
In 1529, Vienna was first besieged by the army of the Ottoman Empire, which had a border only 150 km east of Vienna. This hurt Vienna economically, but led to people fortifying the city (making it stronger). After a second siege, the Ottoman Empire could not take Vienna, and the city started getting larger.
During the baroque era, Vienna was rebuilt. Many residences for the nobility were built. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach was an important architect in Vienna.
At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century Vienna was the home of important composers like Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert.
After the revolution in 1848 Franz Joseph I. became emperor of the Austrian Empire, which was founded in 1806 after the liquidation of the Holy Roman Empire. He ruled till 1916. Vienna became a center of arts, culture and architecture. The city grew because the suburbs became part of the city. After 1858 the walls of the city were destroyed and the Ringstraße replaced them. Along that street houses of the rich citizens were built, as were public buildings like the city hall and the Burg theatre. The industrialisation started at the beginning of the century and made more people live there. In 1870, Vienna had one million people, and in 1910, two million people. With the creation of a large working class and poverty in Vienna the Labour Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei) became stronger.
Karl Lueger was the most important mayor in the time of Emperor Franz Josef. During his time important community plans were realized that made Vienna a modern city. However, Lueger was a radical anti-Semite. He was admired by the young Adolf Hitler, who spent some years before the First World War in Vienna. At this time, Vienna was an important place for the arts. Composers like Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Ernst Krenek were important for the development of modern music. Also the psychoanalysis was founded in Vienna by Sigmund Freud. Also the so-called Jugendstil in arts was part of Vienna's modern arts scene. Founding fathers of modern architecture lived and worked also in Vienna at this time (Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos)
After the end of the First World War the Austrian-Hungary Empire was dissolved and Vienna became capital of the Republic of Austria. In 1938, Austria was occupied by Germany. In Vienna the suffering of the Jewish inhabitants began. A lot of their properties was given to Austrians (Arisierung).