Marienplatz (en: Mary’s Square, i.e. St. Mary, Our Lady’s Square) is a central square in the city centre of Munich, Germany. It has been the city’s main square since 1158.
Marienplatz was named after the Mariensäule, a Marian column erected in its centre in 1638 to celebrate the end of Swedish occupation. Today the Marienplatz is dominated by the New City Hall (Neues Rathaus) on the north side, and the Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus, a reconstructed gothic council hall with a ballroom and tower) on the east side.
In the Middle Ages, markets and tournaments were held in this city square. It used to be called Markth (market), Schranne (grain market) and later Schrannenplatz (grain market square). After said grain market was moved into the modern glass-and-iron Schranne near “Blumenstrasse” in 1853, the square received its new name, starting 9. October 1854. The Glockenspiel in the tower of the new city hall was inspired by these tournaments, and draws millions of tourists a year. Furthermore, the pedestrian zone between Karlsplatz and Marienplatz is a crowded area with numerous shops and restaurants.
Fun Facts about Munich
- Annually about 3 million tourists come to Munich, and this is two times more than the population of this city. Millions of tourists flock to Munich in the summer months and September and October for Oktoberfest.
- World’s Largest Beer Festival – Oktoberfest is visited by more than 7 million people annually. In an area as large as 50 football fields, over 1,532,197 gallons of beer are served.
- In Munich, there is the largest beer pub in the world founded in 1589—Hofbräuhaus. In the list of famous visitors of this brewery is Lenin with Krupskaya, Hitler, Mozart, Elizabeth of Bavaria.
- The Munich beer factory Augustiner, founded in 1328, is the oldest in the world. It is known as a high-quality brewery. It all starts with the uncompromising choice of raw materials – only locally produced, authentic barley is used, for example – and continues with consistently high-quality, in-house malt production.
- The city park of Munich, which is called the English Park (Englischer Garten) has an area of 4.17 square kilometers and is the largest urban park in the world. It was founded in 1792. Its name refers to the style of the landscape popular in Britain from the mid-18th to 19th century.
- Munich is the birthplace of the company “BMW,” and here it is the most popular cars brand in comparison with other German cars.
- The city even has a “BMW museum,” in which visitors can learn about the history of the development of this brand, and about its perspectives and plans for the future. There you’ll find retro cars, futuristic bridges, squares and huge backlit wall screens.
- If you want to see the biggest castle in Germany, then you should visit Munich. The villa is called Nymphenburg. Its distance from one wing to the other is 1 km.
- With its unique combination of architecture and garden design, Nymphenburg is one of the best examples in Europe of a synthesis of the arts.
- Every sports fan associates Munich with football club Bayern – the most famous in Germany. Bayern Munich was founded in 1900 and has become Germany’s most famous and successful football club. Almost all of Bayern’s success has come since the 1960s.
- The most popular Munich dish is white pork sausages. It is famous all over the world and called “Weisswurst”. The tradition of eating Weißwurst in the morning has continued to the present day.
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