page_title: Gera
section_title: Agriculture, industry and services
hierarchical_section_title: Gera / Economy and infrastructure / Agriculture, industry and services
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Ehemalige Textilfabrik in Gera, Deutschland English: Abandoned textile factory in Gera, Germany
context_page_description: Gera is the third-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, with 94,000 inhabitants, located 55 kilometres south of Leipzig, 75 km east of Erfurt and 120 km west of Dresden.
  Gera was first mentioned in 995 and developed to a city during the 13th century. Later, it was the residence of several lines of the Reussians until the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918. Over the 19th century, Gera became a centre of the textile industry and saw a period of rapid growth. In 1952, the city also became an administrative centre in GDR as one of the capitals of Gera administrative district. In 1990, Gera became part of re-established Thuringia. The loss of its administrative functions as well as its industrial core precipitated the city's slide into an enduring economic crisis.
  Since 1990, many of Gera's buildings have been restored and big urban planning programmes like the Bundesgartenschau 2007 were implemented to stimulate Gera's economy. Sights include some retained buildings of the royal residence epoque and many public and private buildings from the economic heyday between 1870 and 1930. The famous painter Otto Dix was born in Gera in 1891.
context_section_description: Agriculture has some importance in the rural districts of Gera, especially in the northern and eastern city parts. Approximately 57% of the municipal territory is in agricultural use:  growing maize, rapeseed and crops as well as pasturing cattle.
  The city's economy features industrial machinery (Dagro Gera GmbH), communications (DTKS GmbH, Deutsche Telekom), security locks (Schloßsicherungen Gera GmbH), optics (POG Präzisionsoptik Gera GmbH), electrical equipment (Electronicon Kondensatoren GmbH), and margarine manufacturing (Othüna). Other companies include a compressor manufacturer (Kompressorenwerk Kaeser), a precision-tool maker (SMK-Präzisionsmechanik), and a subsidiary of the construction company Max Bögl. The e-commerce service-provider D+S Europe has a service centre in Gera with several hundred workers, and Rittal, a manufacturer of information-technology enclosures, recently moved from Bad Köstritz to Gera. Some industrial branches operating before 1990 no longer have major importance.  Sectors either no longer existing or sharply reduced include those in toolmaking (VEB Wema Union), textiles (VEB Modedruck), textile machinery (VEB Textima), electronic equipment (VEB Elektronik Gera).  Other industries that had a presence included VEB Carl Zeiss Jena and a brewery. One important industrial branch had been uranium-ore mining in nearby Ronneburg (Wismut), whereby the region became the Soviet Union's leading uranium supplier. In 2012 Gera had 41 companies with more than 20 workers in the industrial sector, employing 3,400 people and generating an overall turnover of €452 million.
  Gera is a supra-centre according to the Central Place Theory in German regional planning. This makes the city a regional centre for retailing, with three major shopping centres: Gera-Arcaden, Amthor-Passage and Elster-Forum. Health services are important, with one of the biggest hospitals in Thuringia, the SRH Waldklinikum. Nevertheless, Gera's economy is weak compared to equal-sized neighbouring cities like Jena or Zwickau. While Jena counts 51,000 and Zwickau 50,000 jobs liable to pay into the German social insurance, Gera had only 35,000 of those full-time jobs in 2012. The commuter balance was +14,000 in Jena and +16,000 in Zwickau, but only +2,000 in Gera, which is one of the lowest ratios among German supra-centres, highlighting the lack of ability of Gera to provide jobs for the region. The unemployment rate reached 11.2% in September 2013 - the highest among all Thuringian districts.
caption: A former textile factory in Gera
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