page_title: Kiel
section_title: Economy and infrastructure
hierarchical_section_title: Kiel / Economy and infrastructure
caption_attribution_description: English: Holsten strasse, Kiel
context_page_description: Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 249,023.
  Kiel lies approximately 90 kilometres north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula and the southwestern shore of the Baltic Sea, Kiel has become one of the major maritime centres of Germany. For instance, the city is known for a variety of international sailing events, including the annual Kiel Week, which is the biggest sailing event in the world. Kiel is also known within modern history for the Kiel Mutiny, where German sailors refused to board Navy vessels in protest against Germany's continued fighting in World War I which led to the abdication of the Kaiser and the formation of the Weimar Republic. The Olympic sailing competitions of the 1936 and the 1972 Summer Olympics were held in the Bay of Kiel.
  Kiel has also been one of the traditional homes of the German Navy's Baltic fleet, and continues to be a major high-tech shipbuilding centre. Located in Kiel is the GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel at the University of Kiel.
context_section_description: Kiel's economy is dominated by the service sector, transport and maritime industries. Kiel is also one of the major ports of the German Navy, and a leading centre of German high-tech military and civil shipbuilding. Kiel is the home of Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, a shipyard founded in 1838 famed for its construction of submarines. HDW built the first German submarine Brandtaucher in 1850, and is today a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, the leading German group of shipyards.
caption: The Holstenstraße is one of the longest shopping streets in Germany — Kiel is the largest city in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.
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