Gießen: Real-life Facebook in Hessen

If ever a place earned the label 'student city' then it is Gießen. It has the highest concentration of students in Germany. Nearly every third person in the 73,000 inhabitant town is a student, which certainly shapes life in the city. Gießen is like a real-life version of Facebook. Spend a few semesters studying here and you will bump into people you know all over town.

Gießen introduced

Gießen tends to be a city that people have heard of, but drive by. Many of the major highway routes to major German cities pass close by, but not many people actually exit the autobahn to visit. Yet Gießen, which is located just 70 kilometers north of Germany’s banking and travel hub Frankfurt, has a fair bit to offer. Like its neighboring towns Marburg and Wetzlar, Gießen is located on the picturesque Lahn River. Not only does Gießen have some of the best salads on the café menu here and the only interactive mathematics museum worldwide, it also has many – sometimes quite strange – university courses and loads of cosy student pubs. And at the annual diskurs – festival for performing arts, artists from all over Europe present their creative work on stage in the form of theater, dance, music, installation art, or film.
Besides the students, in the past 60 years American soldiers have helped shape the city’s landscape. In peak-times around 13,000 soldiers lived here with their families. Aside from their own districts with designated housing, the military personnel also had their own accompanying infrastructure, including a school, library, theater, church, recycling facility, kindergarten and even their own car-wash street. It was their own small town within the town. Yet in the fall of 2007 the last soldiers and their families left. Nevertheless, many American families have set down roots in the area, and their presence can still be felt.
The city center offers everything that you need, including parks and a pedestrian precinct with shops, cafes, cinemas, beer gardens pubs and bars. The symbol of the city is the city’s church tower in the center of town. It’s a church tower, without the accompanying church, as it was destroyed during the Second World War. The outline of where the church used to stand is traced by a line of stones in the grass. The square is scattered with benches and makes for a pleasant place to hang out. Another symbol of the city is the Selstertor pedestrian bridge that links two central crossings in town.

Overview of the universities

Justus-Liebig-Universität
In 2007 the Justus Liebig University Giessen celebrated its 400-year anniversary. It is one of the oldest universities in Germany. It is named
after one of the most important chemists of the 19th century, who taught and researched at the university from 1824 to 1852.
Today the university has around 22,000 students. Two of Germany’s important politicians are its alumni: former Foreign Minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier and Brigitte Zypries both studied law at Justus Liebig University. The university is well respected and is promoting internationalization, already offering many courses and programs in English.
The university, which boasts a very broad range of subjects, is spread throughout the city. Many faculties are located on the main campus, but some are located in historical buildings in the city – the geography institute, for example, is located in the historical 'Neues Schloss' in the center of town. The building, which was constructed from 1533-1537, was one of the only buildings around the Brandplatz square to survive the bombing in World War II without major damage. There is also a smaller separate campus that houses a few other faculties including business and law.
Alongside the traditional subjects there are also a number of more unusual courses students can take, such as theater studies and East European history. In the Agricultural Sciences, Nutritional Sciences and Environmental Management faculty students can even study Viniculture and Oenology. Despite the fact that the university is large, the individual departments are fairly manageable. “I like the fact that you know your fellow students and that internationally recognized research goes on here,” says Roman Pignanelli, who has just completed his psychology degree.
University President Stefan Hormuth views the JLU “in a great position” for the future. That’s what the “outstanding successes in the excellence initiative” showed – the competition among German universities to win financial support to develop top study and research programs, mainly in the natural sciences. At the end of 2006 the JLU won support for two so-called “Excellence Clusters” making it one of the most successful universities.

University of Applied Sciences Gießen Friedberg
In contrast to the JLU, at the University of Applied Sciences Gießen Friedberg all activity takes place on a central campus in the middle of town. The university has over 50 degree courses – spread between Gießen and Friedberg, located approximately 40 kilometers away. The main subjects offered are traditional engineering disciplines like mechanical and civil engineering. And there are new courses like information and communications technology, biotechnology and mechatronics. But there are also non-engineering related courses such as business and IT in the university’s portfolio.
Around half of the universities students (5,500) study in Gießen. Foreign students from around 90 countries make for a diverse student population and the many partner universities throughout the world make a semester abroad an attractive option for students at the university.

Did you know?

Around 80 percent of Gießen’s historic old town was destroyed in World War 2.
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen – who discovered X-ray radiation in 1885 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1901 – is buried at his family’s grave in Gießen.
In terms of sport, Giessen is best known for its basketball team. Its team, the 'Gießen 46ers' was a founding member of the German Basketball Bundesliga and has never been relegated. Giessen’s clubs are often represented in rowing, dancing and handball and Germany’s famous Olympic gymnast Florian Hambüchen comes from the neighboring city Wetzlar.

Things to check out:

If you’re in Gießen you should not miss out on stopping by the botanic garden.
You can take in the fresh air in the green oasis in the center of town and also soak up a bit of history. Originally founded as a medical healing plant garden in 1607, it is the oldest botanic garden in Germany still located in its original location. In the summer there are also regular jazz concerts here.
For cinema fans, it’s well worth taking the 13-kilometer trip to the neighboring town Lich. The award-winning cinema Traumstern has a large and varied program, including many independent films. It shows a short film before each feature film and just next door a cosy African restaurant provides a tasty place to eat and chat about the movie. If you’re a bit strapped for cash and don’t want to travel as far, check out the Kinocenter in Gießen town center. On four days of the week it has a late night special showing for just 99 cents.
Ulenspiegel, Haarlem, or Domizil: those are locations that you should get to know if you spend time as a student in Gießen. At these clubs or the many advertised student parties, you will rub shoulders with your fellow students and meet people from different faculties.
If clubs are not quite your thing, there is also a lively pub scene in Gießen with beer gardens aplenty for those long summer evenings. A particularly good place to enjoy a warm evening with a beer is in the Bootshaus. The former boat club house is now a nice beer garden on the banks of the river Lahn.
For budding scientists the Liebig museum is a must-see, as the original laboratory of the chemist Justus Liebig is situated here. And just next door is the Mathematikum, which boasts that it is the first interactive math museum in the world. So head on over and test your math skills.