page_title: Aachen
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Aachen / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Rosenmontag 2009, this picture was taken in the carnival (Karneval) of Aachen, which is called Rosenmontag. It is a day in which the families dress up in costumes like the mother and child in this picture. The picture was taker in Adalbertsteinwegstraße (street) in Aachen, Germany. Photo by Aymx
context_page_description: Aachen, also known as Bad Aachen, in French as Aix-la-Chapelle, in Italian as Aquisgrana, and in Latin as Aquæ Granni, is a spa and border city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen developed from a Roman settlement and spa, subsequently becoming the preferred medieval Imperial residence of Emperor Charlemagne of the Frankish Empire, and, from 936 to 1531, the place where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the Germans.
  Aachen is the westernmost city in Germany, located near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, 61 km west of Cologne in a former coal-mining area. One of Germany's leading institutes of higher education in technology, the RWTH Aachen University, is located in the city. Aachen's industries include science, engineering and information technology. In 2009, Aachen was ranked eighth among cities in Germany for innovation.
context_section_description: In 1372, Aachen became the first coin-minting city in the world to regularly place an anno Domini date on a general circulation coin, a groschen.
  The Scotch Club in Aachen was the first discothèque; it has been open since 19 October 1959. Klaus Quirini as DJ Heinrich was the first DJ ever.
  The thriving Aachen black metal scene is among the most notable in Germany, with such bands as Nagelfar, The Ruins of Beverast, Graupel and Verdunkeln.
  The local speciality of Aachen is an originally hard type of sweet bread, baked in large flat loaves, called Aachener Printen. Unlike Lebkuchen, a German form of gingerbread sweetened with honey, Printen use a syrup made from sugar. Today, a soft version is sold under the same name which follows an entirely different recipe.
  Asteroid 274835 Aachen, discovered by amateur astronomer Erwin Schwab in 2009, was named after the city. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 November 2019 (M.P.C. 118221).
caption: Aachen is also famous for its carnival (Karneval, Fasching), in which families dress in colourful costumes
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