Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its station is a major railway junction and it has a port on the river Main, making it an important transport centre. The city is known for being the birthplace of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and Franciscus Sylvius. Since the 16th century it was a centre of precious metal working with many goldsmiths. It is home to Heraeus, one of the largest family-owned companies in Germany.
Hanau, once the seat of the Counts of Hanau, lost much of its architectural heritage in World War II. A British air raid in 1945 created a firestorm, killing one sixth of the remaining population and destroying 98 percent of the old city and 80 percent of the city overall.
In 1963, the city hosted the third Hessentag state festival. Until 2005, Hanau was the administrative centre of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis. On 19 February 2020, a gunman attacked two bars and a kiosk in Hanau, murdering nine people with roots outside Germany, before shooting his mother and himself.
Geography
The historic core of Hanau is situated within a semicircle of the river Kinzig which flows into the river Main just west of the city. Today, after a substantial expansion during the 19th and 20th centuries it also extends to the river Main and after a restructuring of municipal borders within Hesse in the 1970s a couple of nearby villages and towns were incorporated. After this change, Hanau for the first time, also extended to the south bank of the Main river.
Climate
On the 0 °C isotherm, Hanau has a humid continental climate as Eastern Germany with warm summer, classified by Köppen as Dfb. In the -3 °C isotherm has oceanic climate (Cfb) with some interior characteristics. Using the first definition used is the city most west of the continent below 200 m at sea level with this category.
Districts
Innenstadt (city center) Nordwest (northwest) incl. Südost (southeast)
Großauheim
Name
The name is derived from Hagenowe, which is a composition of ('wood') and ('open land by the side of a river').
History
Old town
As a place of settlement Hanau was first mentioned in 1143. Formerly it was the site of a castle which used the waters of the river Kinzig as a defense. The castle belonged to a noble family, calling themselves "of Hanau" from the 13th century. Starting from this castle a village developed and became a town in 1303. As a result of this history, the main church of Hanau stood outside its walls in the village of Kinzdorf. The villagers moved into the town, Kinzdorf became an abandoned village leaving only the church. Only in the 15th century was the status of the Hanau parish church transferred to the church of Mary Magdalene within the town walls.
Shortly after the first town walls were built at the beginning of the 14th century, the town outgrew this limit. Outside the wall, along the road to Frankfurt am Main a settlement developed (the Vorstadt) which was properly included in the fortifications of Hanau only when Hanau received completely new fortifications in Renaissance-style during the first half of the 16th century. These new fortifications enclosed three elements: The medieval castle, the medieval town of Hanau and the Vorstadt.