Munich (German: München [ˈmʏnçn̩] ⓘ, Bavarian: Minga [ˈmɪŋ(ː)ɐ] ⓘ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third most-populous city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is not a state of its own, and it ranks as the 11th-largest city in the European Union (EU). The metropolitan area has around 3 million inhabitants, and the broader Munich Metropolitan Region is home to about 6.2 million people. It is the third largest metropolitan region by GDP in the EU. Located on the Isar River near the Alps, it is the seat of the Upper Bavarian administrative region. With 4,800 people per km2, Munich is Germany's most densely populated municipality and the second-largest city in the Bavarian dialect area after Vienna.
The first record of Munich dates to 1158. The city has played an important role in Bavarian and German history. During the Reformation, it remained Catholic. Munich became the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 and developed as an artistic and technological hub. The House of Wittelsbach ruled until 1918, when the German revolution of 1918–1919 ended their reign and saw the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. In the 1920s, Munich became a centre of political movements, including the rise of the Nazi Party. The city was known as the "Capital of the Movement". During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed, but much of its historic architecture has since been restored. After the war, the city's population and economy grew rapidly. Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics and the 1974 FIFA World Cup final.
Munich is a major hub for science, technology, finance, innovation, business, and tourism with high standard of living, ranking first in Germany and third worldwide in the 2018 Mercer survey. It was named the world's most liveable city by Monocle's Quality of Life Survey 2018. Munich is the wealthiest city in the EU by GDP per capita among cities with over one million inhabitants and is among the most expensive German cities for real estate and rents. In 2023, 30.1% of residents were foreigners, and 19.4% were German citizens with a migration background from abroad. Munich's economy is based on high tech, automobiles, the service sector, information technology, biotechnology, engineering, and electronics. Multinational companies such as BMW, Siemens, Allianz SE, and Munich Re are headquartered there. The city has two research universities and many scientific institutions. Munich is known for its architecture, cultural venues, sports events, exhibitions, and the annual Oktoberfest, the world's largest Volksfest.
History
Etymology
Munich was a tiny 10th-century monastic settlement, which was named zu den Munchen ("to the monks"). The Old High German Munche served as the base for the modern German city name München.
Early history
The river Isar was a prehistoric trade route and in the Bronze Age Munich was among the largest raft ports in Europe. Bronze Age settlements up to four millennia old have been discovered. Evidence of Celtic settlements from the Iron Age have been discovered in areas around Ramersdorf-Perlach.
The ancient Roman road Via Julia, which connected Augsburg and Salzburg, crossed over the Isar south of Munich, at the towns of Baierbrunn and Gauting. A Roman settlement north-east of Munich was excavated in the neighborhood of Denning.
Starting in the 6th century, the Baiuvarii populated the area around what is now modern Munich, such as in Johanneskirchen, Feldmoching, Bogenhausen and Pasing. The first known Christian church was built ca. 815 in Fröttmanning.
Middle Ages
The first medieval bridges across the river Isar were located in current city areas of Munich and Landshut. Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, founded the town of Munich in his territory to control the salt trade, after having burned down the town of Föhring and its bridges over the Isar. Historians date this event at about 1158.
Henry built a new toll bridge, customs house and a coin market closer to his home, somewhat upstream, at a settlement around the area of modern old town Munich. This new toll bridge most likely crossed the Isar where the Museuminsel and the modern Ludwigsbrücke are now located.
Otto of Freising protested to his nephew, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. However, on 14 June 1158, in Augsburg, the conflict was settled in favor of Duke Henry. The Augsburg Arbitration mentions the name of the location in dispute as forum apud Munichen. Although Bishop Otto had lost his bridge, the arbiters ordered Duke Henry to pay a third of his income to the Bishop in Freising as compensation.
14 June 1158 is considered the official founding day of the city of Munich. Archaeological excavations at Marienhof Square (near Marienplatz) in advance of the expansion of the S-Bahn (subway) in 2012 discovered shards of vessels from the 11th century, which prove again that the settlement of Munich must be older than the Augsburg Arbitration of 1158. The old St. Peter's Church near Marienplatz is also believed to predate the founding date of the town.
In 1175, Munich received city status and fortification. In 1180, after Henry the Lion's fall from grace with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, including his trial and exile, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria, and Munich was handed to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, when the Duchy of Bavaria was split in two, Munich became the ducal residence of Upper Bavaria.
Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the city's position by granting it the salt monopoly with staple rights, thus assuring it of additional income.
The growth of Munich was aided by its location on a gravel plain, where the Isar branched into multiple streams that in turn provided drinking water, defensive advantages, and power for many mills and industries within the city.
In the 15th century, Munich underwent a revival of Gothic arts: the Old Town Hall was enlarged, and Munich's largest Gothic church – the Frauenkirche – now a cathedral, was constructed in only 20 years, starting in 1468.
Capital of reunited Bavaria
When Bavaria was reunited in 1506 after the War of the Succession of Landshut against the Duchy of Bavaria-Landshut, Munich became its capital. During the 16th century Munich became a stronghold of the Counter-Reformation. The Renaissance movement beset Munich and the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach under Duke Albrecht V who bolstered their prestige by conjuring up a lineage that reached back to classical antiquity. In 1568 Albrecht V built the Antiquarium to house the Wittelsbach collection of Greek and Roman antiquities in the Munich Residenz. Albrecht V appointed the composer Orlando di Lasso as director of the court orchestra and tempted numerous Italian musicians to work at the Munich court, establishing Munich as a hub for late Renaissance music. During the rule of Duke William V Munich began to be called the "German Rome" and William V began presenting Emperor Charlemagne as ancestor of the Wittelsbach dynasty.
Duke William V further cemented the Wittelsbach rule by commissioning the Jesuit Michaelskirche. He had the sermons of his Jesuit court preacher Jeremias Drexel translated from Latin into German and published them to a greater audience. William V was addressed with the epithet "the Pious" and like his contemporary Wittelsbach dukes promoted himself as "father of the land" (Landesvater), encouraged pilgrimages and Marian devotions. William V had the Hofbräuhaus built in 1589. It would become the prototype for beer halls across Munich.
The Catholic League was founded in Munich in 1609. In 1623, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), Munich became an electoral residence when Duke Maximilian I was invested with the electoral dignity of the Holy Roman Empire, but in 1632 the city was occupied by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. In 1634, Swedish and Spanish troops advanced on Munich. Maximilian I published a plague ordinance to halt an epidemic escalation. The bubonic plague nevertheless ravaged Munich and the surrounding countryside in 1634 and 1635. Troops again converged on Munich in 1647 and precautions were taken, so as to avoid another epidemic. The city remained physically untouched during the war.
During its time as the capital of the Electorate of Bavaria, Munich was an important centre of Baroque life, but also had to suffer under Habsburg occupations in 1704 after Bavaria's defeat in the War of the Spanish Succession and again in 1742 during the War of the Austrian Succession. When Elector Maximilian III Joseph died in 1777, the succession empowered the Palatinate branch within the House of Wittelsbach. In 1785, Elector Karl Theodor invited Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) to Munich to implement social reforms, including workhouses for the poor and army restructuring with improved conditions for soldiers. In the 1790s, Munich became the largest German city to remove its fortifications, starting in 1791 under Karl Theodor and Rumford. After 1793, citizens built new structures outside the former city walls.
After making an alliance with Napoleonic France, the city became the capital of the new Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 with Elector Maximilian IV Joseph becoming its first king. The state parliament (the Landtag) and the new archdiocese of Munich and Freising were also located in the city.
The establishment of Bavarian state sovereignty made Munich the centre of a modernising kingdom. In 1802, King Maximilian Joseph secularised Bavaria, dissolving monasteries and selling church lands to generate state revenue. He also took control of the right to brew beer, granting a monopoly to Munich's wealthiest brewers in exchange for substantial taxes. In 1807, he abolished restrictions on the number of brewery workers, allowing brewers to meet growing demand.
In October 1810, a beer festival was held on the meadows outside Munich to celebrate the crown prince's wedding to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The event, featuring parades in regional dress, later evolved into the annual Oktoberfest, now held at Theresienwiese.
The first Munich railway station was built in 1839, with a line going to Augsburg in the west. By 1849 a newer Munich Central Train Station (München Hauptbahnhof) was completed, with a line going to Landshut and Regensburg in the north. In 1825 Ludwig I had ascended to the throne and commissioned leading architects such as Leo von Klenze to design a series of public museums in neoclassical style. Between 1856 and 1861 the court gardener Carl von Effner landscaped the banks of the river Isar and established the Maximilian Gardens. Leo von Klenze supervised the construction of the Propylaea between 1854 and 1862. In 1857 the construction of the Maximilianeum was begun. The grand building projects of Ludwig I gave Munich the endearment "Athens on the Isar" (German: Isar-Athen) and "Monaco di Bavaria".
By the time Ludwig II became king in 1864, he remained mostly aloof from his capital and focused more on his fanciful castles in the Bavarian countryside. In 1876 Munich hosted the first German Art and Industry Exhibition, which showcased the northern Neo-Renaissance fashion that came to be the German Empire's predominant style. Munich based artists put on the German National Applied Arts Exhibition in 1888, showcasing Baroque Revival architecture and Rococo Revival designs.
The Prince Regent Luitpold's reign from 1886 to 1912 was marked by tremendous artistic and cultural activity in Munich. At the dawn of the 20th century Munich was an epicenter for the Jugendstil movement, combining a liberal magazine culture with progressive industrial design and architecture. The German art movement took its name from the Munich magazine Die Jugend (The Youth). Prominent Munich Jugendstil artists include Hans Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas, Otto Eckmann, Margarethe von Brauchitsch, August Endell, Hermann Obrist, Wilhelm von Debschitz, and Richard Riemerschmid. In 1905 two large department stores opened in Munich, the Kaufhaus Oberpollinger and the Warenhaus Hermann Tietz, both having been designed by the architect Max Littmann. In 1911 the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter was established in Munich. Its founding members include Gabriele Münter.
World War I to World War II
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, life in Munich became very difficult, as the Allied blockade of Germany led to food and fuel shortages. During a French air raid in 1916, three bombs fell on Munich.
In 1916, the 'Bayerische Motoren Werke' (BMW) produced its first aircraft engine in Munich. The public limited company BMW AG was founded in 1918, with Camillo Castiglioni owning one third of the share capital. In 1922 BMW relocated its headquarters to a factory in Munich.
After World War I, the city was at the centre of substantial political unrest. In November 1918, on the eve of the German revolution, Ludwig III of Bavaria and his family fled the city. After the murder of the first republican premier of Bavaria Kurt Eisner in February 1919 by Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed. The November 1918 revolution ended the reign of the Wittelsbach in Bavaria. In Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler described his political activism in Munich after November 1918 as the "Beginning of My Political Activity". Hitler called the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic "the rule of the Jews".
In 1923 Gustav von Kahr was appointed Bavarian prime minister and immediately planned for the expulsion of all Jews who did not hold German citizenship. Chief of Police Ernst Pöhner and Wilhelm Frick openly indulged in antisemitism, while Bavarian judges praised people on the political right as patriotic for their crimes and handed down mild sentences. In 1923, Adolf Hitler and his supporters, who were concentrated in Munich, staged the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic and seize power. The revolt failed, resulting in Hitler's arrest and the temporary crippling of the Nazi Party (NSDAP).
Munich was chosen as capital for the Free State of Bavaria and acquired increased responsibility for administering the city itself and the surrounding districts. Offices needed to be built for bureaucracy, so a 12-story office building was erected in the southern part of the historic city centre in the late 1920s.